Victims of the Windrush scandal must be compensated by the UK Government, the Catholic Church has said.
The call came as Britain marked Windrush Day on June 22, commemorating the day in 1948 when 1,027 passengers, including 492 from the Caribbean, arrived at Tilbury docks in Essex on the HMT Empire Windrush.
They came to Britain legally in answer to the call for more workers to fill a labour gap following the end of World War Two and many settled permanently. Thousands more would follow in their footsteps during the fifties and sixties.
After living in the country for decades, their status was suddenly thrown into doubt when many of the Windrush generation were declared illegal immigrants. The scandal affected immigrants from the Caribbean in particular.
The consequences included losing jobs, housing, benefits and the free medical care they were entitled to on the NHS. Some were threatened with deporation, refused re-entry at the border or told they had no right to return if they left the country.
Bishop Paul McAleenan said: "22 June is Windrush Day. It marks the arrival of the Windrush generation, giving us an opportunity to celebrate the contribution of the British Caribbean to the common good of UK society. It is also a day to remember and regret what some of that generation were later to experience and are still experiencing.
"As a result of the Government's hostile environment policies members of the Windrush generation were until very recently detained and even deported.
"The Government must now restore the human dignity of those whose rights were violated. They must ensure that necessary emergency support is provided and compensation made. Most of all they must take steps to ensure that such mistakes which undermine one's God given value are never repeated."
The call follows reports that over 164 people from the Caribbean community were deported or detained who might have had the right to live in the UK.
The Government has apologised for the scandal and pledged up to £200m in compensation to people whose lives were damaged after being incorrectly declared illegal immigrants.
So far, only 67 Caribbean nationals out of the 11,800 Caribbean cases reviewed by the Home Office have received a formal apology.
Lloyd Booker, who has servied as president and pastoral minister of the Caribbean Catholic Chaplaincy since 1981, is part of the Windrush generation.
In 1960, at the age of 23, he took a two-week long journey by boat from his native Guyana to London. Although he was not directly affected by the Windrush scandal, he is upset by what has happened to those who have been.
"It shows me a kind of racist attitude, because in the eighties we had the same problem under the Thatcher government," he said in a Catholic Church podcast.
"What they were saying is that people born of Caribbean parents, even though you were born over here, you are not British or English, you are of the Caribbean.
"And they were allowing people born of their old Commonwealth - countries like South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Canada - their descendants are English...and I think it's still happening today."
However, he also had a message for the Church, saying there was a "long way to go" before there would be full integration between the white majority and ethnic minority worshippers.
Recalling the racism within the Church when he first came to Britain nearly 60 years ago, he said: "The children couldn't get into Catholic schools. You go to church and you couldn't sit in the front pews. You had to sit at the back.
"So they feel unwelcome and that is why you find a lot of black churches where black people can meet together and do their own thing."
Asked about how he views the Church now in 2019, he said: "In some ways it's [racism] still there."
