As Tories vow to sort out immigration row, we reveal how a government blunder destroyed the lives of many Windrush kids

THE “Windrush kids”, brought here after World War Two, grafted to make Britain great again – yet until yesterday they faced a hostile and ominous future.

A generation of Commonwealth-born doctors, teachers and nurses were in fear of being booted out of their jobs, houses and the land they had called home for 60 years.

Wrongly identified as being here illegally after changes to immigration law, the Windrush generation were told that unless they could PROVE they were here lawfully, they would be deported.

But thanks to measures announced in the Commons yesterday, that threat has finally been removed.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd promised to set up a taskforce to help immigrants, said they would not be charged for any vital new documentation, and that all cases would be sorted within a fortnight.

Yet it is too little too late for Michael Braithwaite, 66, who lost the job he loved in 2016 because he did not have a biometric card — a permit for non-British residents.

Michael, a former special needs teaching assistant, was nine when he came here from Barbados.

He said: “I’d been at the school for 15 years and I had to leave like I was some sort of criminal.

‘I felt like an alien . . . so many sleepless nights’.

“I fell to pieces inside. I came home, sat down and cried. I thought, ‘Am I even alive?’

“It was horrible, I had to borrow money from people to get by.

“I loved my job — helping kids with learning difficulties and seeing the progress they made meant a lot to me. It felt like they were punishing me and the kids too.”

He lost his job after a standard Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check threw up an irregularity.

He said: “In my Barbados passport I have indefinite leave to stay but that wasn’t enough, I required a biometric card.

“Until two years ago I didn’t even know what that was.

“My head teacher said I was an asset, but the HR department said I was illegal.”

Others like Michael, who arrived here between 1948 and 1973, automatically had the right to remain.

But the Home Office failed to keep a record of them or issue any paperwork to confirm their legal status.

He said: “I felt like an alien.

"I’ve had countless sleepless nights over this and fears of a knock on the door.

“I never applied for a British passport — I thought I WAS British.”

With the help of a solicitor and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), Michael now has a biometric card.

But there are many others in a similar situation.

Research by the University of Oxford-based Migration Observatory suggests that up to 57,000 people could be affected.

They are known as the Windrush kids because many workers arrived from the West Indies aboard the Empire Windrush ship in 1948.

In announcing measures to help the Windrush generation, Amber Rudd apologised for their “wrong” and “appalling” treatment.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Theresa May agreed to discuss the situation with officials from 12 Caribbean countries this week.

And Downing Street stressed that no one with a right to be in the country would be made to leave.

Number 10 had initially rejected a request from the 12 countries, in London for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, but U-turned after more than 140 MPs signed a letter urging her to act.

Written by Tottenham MP David Lammy, the letter described the situation as “immoral and inhumane”.

Most of the public agree.

A YouGov poll shows that 78 per cent feel the Windrush kids should have the right to stay in Britain.

Mr Lammy yesterday said it was “cruel” that it had taken the Government so long to act on behalf of the Windrush children.

He said: “This is a day of national shame . . . These individuals have done nothing wrong and there is no basis upon which the Home Office can justify what they are doing.

“Some of the cases that have caught the public’s attention are truly heartbreaking.”

None more so than Jamaican-born Albert Thompson, who has lived in London for 44 years.

He was a car mechanic for three decades until he got the blood cancer lymphoma and had to quit.

After the removal of his prostate, the 63-year-old was refused radiotherapy on the NHS — unless he paid £54,000 up front.

Albert said: “I feel shocked, sad. Abandoned, really.

"You go to hospital and expect to be treated. You don’t expect them to turn you away.

“I was waiting for my appointment when an administrator gave me a form to fill out.

“It asked for my passport details and I couldn’t give them. I haven’t got a passport.

“The lady said you have to produce your passport or pay £54,000.

"I said, ‘Oh my God, I don’t have 54 pence, let alone £54,000’.

“I told her I’d been here all my adult life, that as far as I’m concerned I’m British, but it made no difference.

She said it was the new rules. I started working in 1974 — I’ve always paid my taxes.”

At the same time his future in the UK was also in jeopardy.

The Home Office could find no record of Albert in its files and he has lost his old Caribbean passport.

He said: “I’ve got no money. Since I stopped work when I got ill I’ve been living from day to day.

“I’m very angry with the Government. I’m here legally but they’re asking me to prove I’m British.”

Hospital care worker Judy Griffith came here from Barbados in 1963, when she was nine.

Her parents had answered a recruitment appeal for workers to drive buses in Britain.

But Judy has been unable to work after her Barbadian passport with a “right to remain” sticker was stolen four years ago.

When her mum, who had returned to Barbados, died two years ago, she could not go to the funeral.

Judy, 63, said: “It really hurt.

"It is the unfairness and injustice that upsets me more than anything.”

The situation has also seen her run up debts on her rented flat in Archway, North London, and narrowly escape eviction.

She said: “I want people to know how serious this is.

“If you can’t have that resident permit, you can’t bank, you can’t work and you have no access to public services.

"How are you meant to live?” Judy got her residency permit last month with the help of Camden Community Law Centre.

She said: “This has impacted my social life, health and work. I didn’t have diabetes before this.

"I feared I could be deported at any minute.”

Now that a taskforce has been set up, hopefully we will no longer be turning our backs on the people who helped rebuild Britain.

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