Thread by @JolyonMaugham

🚨Thread🚨

GASLIGHT, v: to manipulate by psychological means causing a person to doubt their own sanity.

This is a thread about an ongoing limb of the #WindrushInjustice that isn’t well reported + remains under the radar as a result: passport confiscation. @WindrushLives [1/21]

There is a contingent of Windrush victims that we don’t talk about. They are British-born, British passport-holding Black people with Windrush parentage, who have had their British passports *taken away* by @ukhomeoffice for the legally valid reason of [*crickets*]. [2/21]

In the next 5 tweets, you will see the unbelievable story of Carl Nwazota. This will be the most shocking and enraging 10 minutes of your day, for a number of reasons which we’ll go into down thread. Please give this your undivided attention. [3/21]

In part 1, Carl explains how this started - he applied to renew his British passport in 2001. (NB: a quick note on the intersection of race and nationality - if you’re white, I, a Brown woman in this instance, invite you to consider whether this might happen to you.) [4/21]

From here on, you are about to witness a pattern of gaslighting so viciously and thoroughly brazen that it ought to supplant the accepted definition of the term. @ukhomeoffice actions are often described as Kafkaesque. This is something much, much worse. @WindrushLives [5/21]

One of Sajid Javid's more half-baked attempts at doing right by the Windrush generation was the Vulnerable Persons Team, a unit which was set up to provide emergency help to victims in crisis. We @WindrushLives understand Priti Patel has disbanded it. Not that it did much. [6/21]

What he’s saying in the previous flags up another intersection. We’re aware of 2 cases where people of African Windrush parentage have been marginalised in this way. Carl’s African name + lack of British passport = outcast status in the UK, in the 2010s. [7/21]

Like almost all others, Carl was supported not by @ukhomeoffice, the entity which actually owes him that duty, but other Windrush victims, including the indomitable @GlendaCaesar, and a member of a network of pro-bono legal caseworkers (more on this at the end of the day). [8/21]

Let’s debrief. Firstly, this - the confiscation of British passports from people who already held them - *isn’t* an issue with any prominence in the scheme of Windrush cases.

That needs to change right now. We are certain that Carl is not an anomaly. [9/21] @WindrushLives

We @WindrushLives been disappointed when the media orgs like @BBCNews have chosen not to talk about Carl b/c his case is too complicated, and doesn’t fit into the accepted narrative of what makes a Windrush victim. Stop it. People are hurting in ways you don’t know yet. [10/21]

That won’t change until we start hearing and highlighting these stories. British passport holders are being deliberately othered by @ukhomeoffice in pursuit of the govt’s depraved desire to keep the hostile environment alive. Think about how Orwellian that is. [11/21]

Secondly, the awarding of compensation to indivs whose passports are confiscated. *UNBELIEVABLY*, the very fact of these individuals’ Britishness is used to disqualify them from the Windrush Compensation Scheme. Poe would be proud. [12/21]

One individual who has been told this is our friend and a key member of @WindrushLives, @4S0cialJustice. Some selection of @ukhomeoffice officials has told him this, with a straight face, apparently not flinching from the fumes of that noxious paradox. [13/21]

Thirdly, and as flagged above, we are certain - *gestures vaguely at everything we’ve ever said* - that these are not isolated cases. Passport confiscation from Windrush descendants would be an easy and (so far) bloodless way to make hostile environment targets. [14/21]

Therefore, if you or anyone you know has suffered similar, please contact us @WindrushLives. Compilation of clear statistics on the number of people victimised in this way is a necessary first step to tackle this problem. [15/21]

Speaking of “clear statistics”, @ukhomeoffice must be compelled to urgently clarify how many people it has put in this bind. How many passport holders have been told they must accept a biometric residence permit or indefinite leave to remain? [16/21]

Twenty years without a passport is, as you’ve seen, no way to live. Society (COUNCILS, LOCAL AUTHORITIES, BANKS, LANDLORDS) needs to consider how it treats the undocumented, and whether lack of a passport should mean outcast status. (Spoiler: No.) [17/21]

That last point has a much broader relevance. For example, read this excellent new report by @JCWI_UK’s @ZoeJardiniere on the very real lived nightmare of undocumented migrants, then weep. [18/21] jcwi.org.uk/we-are-here-ro…

And finally, the hostile environment. No matter how @ukhomeoffice tries to rebrand it (‘compliant environment’ - really stretching the boundaries of the English language), it is an attitude of naked, aggressive hostility towards people. It is fundamentally anti-human. WL. [19/21]

It is **especially** targeted at Black and Brown people, for some entirely known reason [*ahem*], and in that, it sweeps up people who were born in this country and have - or *should have* - the same basic rights as any other Briton. [20/21] @WindrushLives

These are facts, not opinions, as we hope we’ve demonstrated above, and will continue to do throughout today.

So our question is this: what are YOU going to do about it? [21/21]