10 signatures reached
To: Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Minister for Immigration Caroline Nokes
Protect the rights of commonwealth citizens in the UK
I am petitioning the Home Office to end their callous treatment of citizens of the UK who migrated from commonwealth countries as children, who are now being denied the right to live, work, and receive NHS treatment in the way that British-born citizens do.
Why is this important?
Retirement-age UK citizens who migrated from commonwealth countries as children, and who have lived, worked, and paid taxes in the UK for several decades, are now having their rights as British citizens called into question. British citizens are being denied NHS treatment, evicted from council homes and denied the right to work, on the basis that they do not have the paperwork to prove their entitlement to these basic British, and fundamentally human, rights.
Take the case of 63 year old Albert Thompson. He has lived and worked in London for 44 years, but was recently denied NHS treatment for cancer because he is not able to produce a British passport. He will only receive the treatment if he can produce the £54,000 needed to fund it. He arrived from Jamaica as a teenager, but the Home Office is disputing his eligibility to remain here. Last year he was evicted from his council-owned accommodation because the Home Office suddenly questioned his eligibility. According to the migration charity Praxis, they have seen a sharp rise in cases like this since records began in 2015.
British citizens cannot allow this callous treatment of our friends and neighbours to continue.
