LONDON — Prime Minister Theresa May apologized on Tuesday for harsh treatment of some Caribbeans who have lived in Britain legally for decades but have trouble documenting their status, as her government reversed itself on an issue that had turned into a major embarrassment.
The handling of the Caribbean-born Britons had become an example — a shameful one, critics said — of the Conservative government’s attempts to manage the anti-immigrant sentiment that helped fuel Britain’s 2016 referendum to leave the European Union.
The controversy began after the publication of recent reports in the British press about longtime legal residents of West Indian and Caribbean ancestry who had lost their jobs, been denied medical care, been evicted or even detained and threatened with deportation — all because they could not prove that they had lived in the country since before 1973. Their stories have produced a storm of criticism aimed at the government.
Even as Britain is confronting Russia over the nerve agent attack on a former spy in Salisbury, England, continues to negotiate its divorce from the European Union and recently joined in missile strikes against Syria over accusations that the Syrian government used chemical weapons, the status of middle-aged and elderly Caribbean immigrants has taken up much of the government’s time and attention.
Adding to the embarrassment, the matter reached a climax as Britain has been playing host to the heads of government of British Commonwealth nations. Caribbean heads of state attending the meeting voiced concern about how immigrants were treated.
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