The former employee (who has asked for his name not to be printed) said it was decided in 2010 to destroy the disembarkation cards, which dated back to the 1950s and 60s, when the Home Office’s Whitgift Centre in Croydon was closed and the staff were moved to another site. Employees in his department told their managers it was a bad idea, because these papers were often the last remaining record of a person’s arrival date, in the event of uncertainty or lost documents. The files were destroyed in October that year, when Theresa May was home secretary.
After the destruction of the archive, when an individual requested confirmation of an arrival date, staff had to reply stating there was no record of it.
The Labour MP David Lammy said: “This was no accident and the orders to destroys records must have come from somebody at the top of the department. It is time for the home secretary to do the honourable thing, take responsibility for this fiasco and resign.”
No, no. Amber Rudd had nothing to do with it. May did though.
The Home Office acknowledged that the UK Border Agency decided in 2010 to “securely dispose of some documents known as registration slips. These slips provided details of an individual’s date of entry but did not provide any reliable evidence relating to ongoing residence in the UK or their immigration status.”
Officials said in a statement that the decision was taken on data protection grounds, “to ensure that personal data … should not be kept for longer than necessary. Keeping these records would have represented a potential breach of these principles”.
The Home Office added that in deciding immigration cases, it considers alternative documents, such as tax records and utility bills, as evidence of ongoing residency. “The disposal of registration slips would therefore have no bearing on immigration cases whereby Commonwealth citizens are proving residency in the UK.”
Now that's some class A bullshit right there.
Originally shared by Jenny Winder
Home Office destroyed #Windrush landing cards, says ex-staffer
Evidence of UK arrivals discarded despite case worker protests
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/17/home-office-destroyed-windrush-landing-cards-says-ex-staffer
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