‘Good to be back’, says Windrush migrant after being kept out of UK for 9 years
KINGSTON, Jamaica — A Jamaican woman has finally been allowed to return to the United Kingdom after what was supposed to be a short visit to the island nearly a decade ago.
Gretel Gocan, who is part of the Windrush generation, said she left the UK to attend a funeral in Jamaica in 2009 and was not allowed back.
Like others from the so-called Windrush generation — named after the ship that brought over the first group of West Indian immigrants — Gretel went the UK with a Jamaican passport containing a stamp giving her indefinite leave to remain.
According to UK reports, her document was stolen in a 2006 burglary and she was told she would not be given a UK passport and would need a visa on her new Jamaican passport.
When she tried to board a flight back to the UK in 2009, she was told she did not have the correct documentation, sparking years of heartbreak for her and her family.
She was eventually granted a passport after the scandal broke recently and the emotional pensioner said it was “good to be back” as family members greeted her at Gatwick Airport last Thursday.
“Seeing her come through arrivals, it was incredibly emotional. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster these past few weeks. We’ve been trying for nine years to sort this out. I’m incredibly happy there’s been a result.
“For such a long amount of time it felt like it was block, block, block when it came to getting her back,” said Gocan’s daughter-in-law.
Cases like Gocan’s came to the fore a few weeks and was dubbed the Windrush scandal”, where many were threatened and targeted by immigration laws intended to create a “hostile environment” for illegal immigrants, which included deportation and lost access to healthcare and benefits.
The hard-line policy was pioneered after the centre-right Conservative Party retook power in 2010 by then interior minister Theresa May.
May, apologised for “for any anxiety that has been caused” and her government eventually agreed to formalise following the controversy that erupted over the so-called undocumented UK immigrants.
