Paulette Wilson

Paulette Wilson (1956 – 23 July 2020) was a British immigrant rights activist who fought her own deportation to Jamaica and brought media attention to the human rights violations of the Windrush scandal.

Paulette Wilson
Born1956
Jamaica
Died23 July 2020 (aged 63–64)
Wolverhampton, England
NationalityBritish

Biography

Wilson was born in the British Colony of Jamaica in 1956 and was sent by her mother to Britain when she was ten years old. Raised by her grandparents, in Wellington, Telford,[1][2] she attended primary and secondary school in Britain.[3] She worked as a cook, at one time in the House of Commons staff restaurant, raised a family, and paid British taxes for 34 years. In 2015, Wilson received notification from the government that she was an illegal immigrant and was required to leave the UK.[1][4] Her housing and health care benefits were stopped; she became homeless and was denied the right to seek work.[1][5] By 2017, Wilson was facing deportation. She had not returned to Jamaica for 50 years, but was arrested twice,[6] detained in Yarl's Wood Detention Centre and then sent to the deportation centre at Heathrow Airport in October 2017. The Refugee and Migrant Centre of Wolverhampton persuaded her MP, Emma Reynolds, to stop the deportation at the last minute to allow Wilson more time to appeal to the Home Office.[1][4]

Under the terms of the British Nationality Act 1948, Wilson and tens of thousands of migrants from the Caribbean and other British colonies had arrived in England as citizens of the British Empire.[7][8] Children were admitted to the UK, legally on their parents' passport and no proof of their legal status was issued later. They were granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK in 1971, but changes made to immigration law in 2012, required proof of the right to live in the UK in order to work or obtain housing or access benefits including healthcare and housing benefits.[1][8]

Media coverage of Wilson's situation and her fight with the Home Office to gain recognition of her legal status in the UK, brought forward other victims, and highlighted the 2012 policies implemented by Theresa May during her time as Home Secretary. The events became known as the Windrush scandal,[4][7] which centred on the wrongful detention or deportation of around 164 people by the British government and the threatened deportation of many others.[4]

Assisted by a caseworker from the Refugee and Migrant Centre, Wilson gathered documentation to prove that she had resided in England for 50 years and had been wrongly categorised by the Home Office.[1][7] In 2018, she was officially granted leave to remain.[5] Having settled her own case, Wilson became an activist and fought for the rights of other immigrants facing similar situations.[2] In 2019, a documentary produced by Shanida Scotland for The Guardian included Wilson's story along with other victims of the Windrush scandal.[7] In June 2020, Wilson, along with other activists delivered a petition containing 130,000 signatures to Downing Street calling on the government to resolve the outstanding issues and compensate victims of the scandal.[9][10]

Wilson died on 23 July 2020 in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England.[6] Her decision to go public with the issues she was facing with the Home Office was pivotal in the exposure of the Home Office failings in its implementation of the hostile environment policy.[3][5][6]

gollark: Learning about electronics might be interesting.
gollark: Hmm. Well. It seems like you've gone through basically everything I might suggest and also a large amount of things I haven't, so no idea then.
gollark: More "potentially interesting things to do" than "challenge" but:- play some fun computer games- learn programming- read books (there are lots of authors providing books for free because of the whole situation, I find lots through reddit, and amazon's kindle unlimited is fairly cheap and has lots)- do... exercise of some sort... if you like that, I guess- learn about some other subject which interests you, there are loads of resources for stuff on the internet these days- drawing/other art stuff might be interesting for you if you're good at that- write things? There's r/writingprompts on reddit for that sort of thing- learning lockpicking is apparently quite cheap, might be fun, and is somewhat useful (and legal as long as you only do it on stuff you own, probably)
gollark: <@139559766744629248>
gollark: If you still just want "potentially interesting things to do" I can probably come up with some stuff.

See also
  • Windrush generation the common name for migrants who moved to Britain from the Caribbean in the years after World War II.
  • Sitting in Limbo BBC dramatisation of the story of Anthony Bryan who was caught up in the Home Office hostile environment policy.
  • Dexter Bristol who became destitute after losing his job as a result of the hostile environment policy and who died shortly therafter.

References

Citations
  1. Gentleman 2017.
  2. BBC News 2020.
  3. Refugee and Migrant Centre 2018.
  4. Gentleman & Campbell 2020.
  5. Gentleman 2018.
  6. Gentleman 2020b.
  7. Poulton 2019.
  8. BBC News 2018.
  9. Child 2020.
  10. Gentleman 2020a.

Bibliography
  • Child, David (24 July 2020). "Paulette Wilson: Windrush campaigner who was nearly deported from UK dies aged 64". Evening Standard. London. Archived from the original on 24 July 2020. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  • Gentleman, Amelia (28 November 2017). "Immigration and asylum: 'I can't eat or sleep': The woman threatened with deportation after 50 years in Britain". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 30 June 2020. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  • Gentleman, Amelia (19 June 2020a). "Windrush scandal survivors deliver petition to No 10". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 23 June 2020. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  • Gentleman, Amelia (24 July 2020b). "Without Paulette Wilson, Windrush may have remained hidden". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 24 July 2020. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  • Gentleman, Amelia (11 January 2018). "Woman nearly deported after 50 years in UK wins leave to remain". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 10 July 2020. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  • Gentleman, Amelia; Campbell, Lucy (23 July 2020). "Windrush campaigner Paulette Wilson dies aged 64". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 24 July 2020. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  • Poulton, Lindsay (10 October 2019). "After Windrush – Paulette Wilson visits Jamaica, 50 years on". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 10 May 2020. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  • "The Windrush case that started it all……". Refugee and Migrant Centre. Wolverhampton, UK. 2018. Archived from the original on 24 July 2020. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  • "Paulette Wilson: Windrush campaigner who faced deportation dies aged 64". BBC News. London. 23 July 2020. Archived from the original on 24 July 2020. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  • "Windrush generation: Theresa May apologises to Caribbean leaders". BBC News. London. 17 April 2018. Archived from the original on 25 December 2019. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
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