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Stranded 25 years in Jamaica for a mistake by the British authorities

 

The story is as gruesome as it is heartbreaking: a retired English teacher stranded in Jamaica has been prevented by British authorities from returning to the UK for 25 years after his passport was wrongly confiscated. To top it off, Ken Morgan, 70, was recently declared ineligible for British citizenship due to his too long absence from the country, report our colleagues from the Guardian, Sunday November 22, 2020. The interested party protests today against a “ridiculous” decision, arguing that his absence is due only to the refusal of the authorities to let him enter the territory. He therefore requires a new examination of his request.

Ken Morgan left Jamaica for the United Kingdom in 1960 at the age of 10. The young boy was then provided with an English passport, because the Caribbean island had not yet acquired its independence. He attended a London school before living and working in the UK for over 30 years, until 1994, when Ken Morgan attended a funeral for a loved one in Jamaica. When the ceremony was over, he headed for the airport to return home. But the man was arrested during his registration and his passport was confiscated in the process. The document was, however, valid. He tried to convince officials at the British High Commission of their mistake. In vain.

You do not meet the conditions for obtaining citizenship

25 years passed and, in 2018, the scandal of the “Windrush generation” broke out across the Channel, the name given to immigrants who arrived after the Second World War, some of whom had suffered “unacceptable treatment”. British diplomats then offered Ken Morgan a visa to allow him to return to the United Kingdom. Finally back on Her Majesty’s soil in 2018, he applied for British citizenship.

But the nightmare continues: his request is rejected two years later, on the grounds that he was out of the country in the five years preceding his request … “I am sorry to tell you that you do not meet the conditions for obtaining citizenship and that you do not have the right to stay in the United Kingdom, ”the ruling states concisely. “It makes no sense,” chokes Ken Morgan to journalists from the Guardian from Jamaica, where he is still blocked, but determined to continue the fight.

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