Windrush daughter challenges historic injustice denying her leave to remain in UK

Jeanell Hippolyte’s sister and two brothers have all been given leave to remain in the UK under the Windrush Scheme because of their father’s Windrush status, but her own attempts to gain indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status have been denied for more than 20 years.  

On Tuesday 8 and Wednesday 9 October her judicial review claim against the Home Secretary’s decision will be heard at the High Court in London. 
 
Jeanell claims the decision to deny her ILR is an historic injustice.  
 
Born in Castries, St Lucia, she arrived in the UK in August 2000 when, aged 17, she was a minor. 
 
Her father Cletus Hippolyte had travelled to the UK in 1956 as part of the Windrush generation and by the time he was joined by Jeanell, his presence and status would have given her eligibility for an application for ILR. 
 
However, her applications have been repeatedly denied, despite legal interventions and pleas on her behalf.  
 
The Home Office has defended its decision on the basis that Jeanell has not been continuously resident in the UK since she arrived in 2000. However as her continuous residency would have been dependent on her father proving his own immigration status, and he was not officially granted ILR until 2003 and then British citizenship in 2018, Jeanell had to leave the UK after her student visa expired in 2002. 
 
Her subsequent applications to return to the UK, made in February 2006 and 2008, were refused. From 2008 until summer 2020 Jeanell lived between the UK and St Lucia. She has been continuously in the UK since 10 August 2020. 
 
Meanwhile her sister Sherryanne Desmangles was granted British citizenship as a result of her application to the Windrush Scheme in 2018; her brothers Denzel and Danny Hippolyte were granted indefinite leave to remain through the Windrush Scheme and naturalised in 2019. Following a visit to St Lucia in 2019, Cletus Hippolyte disappeared and is now, sadly, presumed to be dead. 
 
The relevant Windrush Scheme Groups to Jeanell’s claim under the Windrush 
Scheme are groups one and four. Cletus Hippolyte was granted ILR under group one which applies to Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK and who were settled before 01 January 1973 who have been continuously resident in the UK.  
 
Group four applies to people who are “a child of a Commonwealth citizen parent and the parent was settled in the UK before 1 January 1973 or had a Right of Abode (or met these criteria but is now a British citizen)”. 
 
For children to qualify under the Windrush Scheme, the parent must be within group 1 and the child must have been continuously resident in the UK since birth or their arrival in the UK. For those not born in the UK, they must have arrived in the UK before they were 18. 
 
Jeanell’s legal team at law firm Leigh Day say that it is an historic injustice that although Jeanell’s father was a Windrush generation migrant, which has since been validated with the necessary documentation, she has been denied ILR because in 2002 he did not have the documentation which would have permitted her to stay in the UK. If she had been allowed to stay, she would have fulfilled the criteria to grant her ILR. 
 
Jeanell Hippolyte said: 
 
“My dad came to the UK as part of Windrush in 1956. I came to the UK as his daughter, to study here in 2000. I wanted to stay and make a life here, like the rest of my family have been allowed to do. But simply because my dad’s Windrush status was not rubber stamped until 2003, I have never been able to live here continuously. As a result I have had to split my life between the UK at St Lucia, and that means I have been denied the same right that the rest of my family has been granted to live here permanently. 
 
“This is an injustice that I want to see corrected, not just for me, but for all of the other Windrush generation children who have been affected by this loophole.” 
 
Freya Danby, solicitor at Leigh Day said:  
 
“Like so many children of the Windrush Generation, Jeanell has experienced ill-treatment from the Home Office for many years.  It was the Windrush Scandal that meant she had to leave the UK, which then meant that she couldn’t satisfy the criteria for the Windrush Scheme. It is unfair that Jeanell is being treated differently from her siblings because she had to leave the UK at the age of 19 in order to comply with immigration control.
 
“There should be more flexibility in the Windrush Scheme so that people like Jeanell are still able to get a just outcome. Jeanell believes the decision entirely undermines the spirit of the Windrush Scheme and flies in the face of the wrongs it was intended to put right.”