Author:David Lammy
35-year-old Mozi Haynes set to return to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines despite having lived in Britain for most of his life and being main carer for his mother, who has cancer
The son of a Windrush-generation immigrant is planning to leave the UK tomorrow amid threats of deportation, despite ministers’ reassurances that no one with the right to stay in the UK will be removed, an MP has said.
Ruth Williams, 75, said she felt “betrayed” by Britain after the Home Office twice turned down applications for her 35-year-old son, Mozi Haynes, to remain in the country.
Amid rising anger over a government clampdown on Windrush-era immigrants who do not have UK paperwork, ministers assured MPs on Monday that they were not aware of any deportations and that no one would be removed from the country if they had a right to remain.
Ms Williams is understood to have cancer and said she relies heavily on her son for support.
“I feel betrayed and a second class citizen in my own country,” she said. “This makes me so sad and the Home Office must show some compassion.
“I am unwell and almost 75, I live on my own and I need my son to stay here. I need my family around me and I can’t face being alone. He has applied to the Home Office and been refused twice.”
According to his mother, Mr Haynes applied for British citizenship in 2016 but was rejected, despite Ms Williams having lived in the UK almost permanently since arriving from St Vincent and the Grenadines in 1959.
Mr Haynes said he had bought a ticket back to that country amid fears he would be deported.
He told LBC: “Every knock on the door, you think they’re coming to get you; every car that pulls up outside, you think it’s them.
“I’ve been living in this hostility – it’s the only world I know. I love Britain, its been my home for so long, I don’t really know anything else, but it is hostile.”
