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UK Home Secy resigns, admits having 'inadvertently misled' Parliament over 'Windrush' scandal

UK Home Secy resigns, admits having 'inadvertently misled' Parliament over 'Windrush' scandal

Amber Rudd

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Rudd had faced repeated calls from the opposition Labour Party to resign after she gave contradictory statements about meeting targets for deportations of illegal migrants.

UK's Home Secretary Amber Rudd resigned on Monday. Her resignation came following pressure mounting on Theresa May's government over its treatment of the 'Windrush generation', the first large group of Caribbean migrants that arrived in the UK after the World War II.

According to reports, May's government received flak over 'wrongly labelling' the Caribbean migrants as illegal.

Rudd, who was supposed to make a Commons statement today, stepped down for having 'inadvertently misled' the parliament over targets for deporting illegal immigrants.

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"It is with great regret that I am resigning as Home Secretary. I feel it is necessary to do so because Iinadvertently misled the Home Affairs Select Committeeover targets for removal of illegal immigrants during questions on Windrush," read Rudd's resignation letter.

Rudd took to Twitter and apologised saying that she was not aware of "specific removal targets". "I accept I should have been and I'm sorry that I wasn't," read her tweet.

For two weeks, British ministers have been struggling to explain why some descendants of the so-called "Windrush generation" had been labelled as illegal immigrants.

Rudd had faced repeated calls from the opposition Labour Party to resign after she gave contradictory statements about meeting targets for deportations of illegal migrants.

The 'Windrush generation' was invited to Britain after the end of World War II, between 1948 and 1971, to plug labour shortfalls in the region.

(With inputs from Reuters)