The Windrush Scandal and the individualization of postcolonial immigration control in Britain

Abstract

This article argues a previously little-discussed policy shift, the individualization of UK immigration control, is key to understanding the Windrush Scandal and the wider governance of racialized immigrants in Britain. Drawing on official records from 1963 to 1973, this article identifies how the UK shifted from an initial aggregate model of governing postcolonial immigrants, deemphasizing individual policing, to a model centred on scrutinizing individual compliance. Through interviews with 1980s–2010s UK policy actors, it identifies three policy legacies of this shift. First, it naturalized increasing individual scrutiny as the mechanism for reducing immigration, making immanent the “hostile environment” logic. Second, it gradually increased expectations of individual immigrant documentation, after many Windrush victims arrived under document-light control systems. Third, centring immigrants’ individuality accorded with declining policy deliberation about immigration control’s potential impacts on already-settled minorities. Even absent formal changes to their status, this shift eroded the rights of long-settled immigrants in Britain.