EQUALITY and migrant-rights campaigners called for an investigation into institutional racism in the Home Office today after the Windrush inquiry condemned the department for its “ignorance and thoughtlessness.” 

The Windrush scandal was “foreseeable and avoidable” and victims were let down by “systemic operational failings” at the Home Office, according to the Windrush Lessons Learned review.

In April 2018 it was revealed that some immigrants who arrived in Britain between the late 1940s and early 1970s were facing deportation and being denied access to vital services due to issues with paperwork.

Warning signs of problems caused by the immigration policy, including “racially insensitive” billboards telling people to “go home or face arrest,” were ignored, the report also found

Some ministers still “do not accept the full extent of the injustice,” it added.

Following the report 15 organisations, including the Runnymede Trust and Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, called for an independent review of the Home Office and whether its immigration policies met equality laws around racial discrimination.

The groups also urged the government to make its Windrush Compensation Scheme more accessible and introduce independent oversight of the scheme as a matter of urgency.

Runnymede Trust deputy director Dr Zubaida Haque urged the government to “not only ‘right the wrongs’, “ but also understand “how and why Home Office culture, attitudes, immigration and citizenship policies have repeatedly discriminated against black and ethnic-minority British citizens.”

She warned: “Unless the issues around institutional racism are meaningfully addressed, we risk the same mistakes and injustices being repeated.”

In the Commons, Home Secretary Priti Patel said “on behalf of this and successive governments” she was “truly sorry” for the “pain, suffering and the misery” inflicted on the Windrush generation.

Former prime minister Theresa May, who was home secretary at the time, said she associated herself with the apology, adding that the Windrush generation “should not have been treated in this way” under her own policy.

But Labour’s shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner said that listening to Ms Patel gave him “no confidence” that she will accept the recommendations of the review.

Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said both the review and “some genuine contrition” from the government were “long overdue.”

Ms Abbott called for a “root-and-branch overhaul and change of culture” in the department.

“But there must also be an end to the government’s ‘hostile environment’ policy, or there will never be an end to new cases in this scandal,” she added.

Shadow immigration minister Bell Ribeiro-Addy said the “damning verdict” “must not be drowned out amidst the current state of national emergency.”

She said: “The review again highlights the tension between treating people fairly and compassionately under a numbers-based immigration system and reaffirms the continued failure to deliver justice to victims of the scandal since it first came to light.”