Windrush pensioner's passport cancelled 3 times in 'punishing' 40 year Home Office battle

A Windrush pensioner says he has had his passport cancelled three times and his life "halted" for four decades while fighting with the Home Office.

Augustin Castang, 68, who arrived from St Lucia to the UK at the age of three, says he was left 'dumbfounded' after first being told he was no longer a British citizen when he tried to renew his passport while visiting Canada to see if he wanted to live there permanently in 1982.

Forced to work as a busboy in Toronto, he spent more than half his life having his passport accepted then rejected which felt "like a stab in the heart."

During this time, Augustin says he lost contact with friends, while his dreams of working for were dashed.

Augustin said: "[The Home Office] treated me like a piece of meat. They can cancel my passport anytime they desire."

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The 68-year-old says he desperately wrote to The Queen who tried to help, while he claims that his former Tottenham MP told him he couldn't assist him because he "didn't live here anymore."

In 2018, he was finally told the reason why his citizenship was taken away was because of immigration laws which came into effect when St Lucia gained independence.

Now, since the Windrush scandal emerged exposing how people from the Commonwealth countries were wrongly detained and stripped of their rights as British citizens, Augustin has applied through the Windrush scheme.

However, after two rejections from the Home Office, he was only granted indefinite leave to enter the country and finally to remain, but still has not been granted a UK passport.

Mr Castang said: “[When I was told I wasn’t British], I was dumbfounded. I didn’t know what to say. All of a sudden, the passport you’re holding has no validation.

“People ask me where my accent is from and I don’t know who I am, I don’t know where I came from. My parents never talked about St Lucia. Even now, people say say that I haven't lost my [British] accent.

“I don’t feel Canada is my home, I’ve struggled with this identity. They made me stateless without telling me.”

Augustin says that after being told he was no longer a citizen of the UK in 1982, he still held his physically British passport while in Canada.

He says he decided to take a chance and use it to return to the UK, and to his surprise, he says he was allowed through the border.

The 68-year-old said: "I showed them my passport and they said, 'yeah, no problem, you're British and never took my passport away. "

Augustin says he tried to visit the Home Office to finally resolve the issue but that there were "queues of people going round the block" and that he decided to go back to Canada and visit the British embassy there instead.

But when he arrived, he says that they took his passport which hadn't expired and and stamped "cancelled" throughout it.

Augustin said: "That was a stab in the heart. I became a real introvert. I didn't know who to talk to. I didn't know where to ask for help."

The pensioner says he decided to apply for Canadian citizenship so that he would be able to travel as his British passport had been ripped from him.

During decades of feeling incomplete while the fight to have his passport reinstated weighed heavy on him, Augustin says he even wrote to The Queen and went to seek help from MP David Lammy.

Augustin said: "I wrote to The Queen, and The Queen forwarded my information to the Governor General in Canada and the Governor General wrote to me saying they don't deal with immigration matters.

"I went to David Lammy. I told him because I used to live in Tottenham and I spent my early years in Tottenham but he said, 'you don't live here anymore.' I expected better and thought he would want to help but, no."

In 2010, Augustin says he had a breakthrough when he was issued a passport after visiting the UK passport office who he says confirmed he was a British citizen.

But days after securing the identity document he had fought several years for, he was shocked to receive a letter stating it was being revoked again as it was given “in error" which he says left him "speechless."

Augustin said: "My aunt told me, 'there's a letter for you from the Home Office', saying that they've cancelled my passport. I didn't know what to do. I was speechless. I was angry thinking, 'why are the British doing this? What did I do wrong?

Now, over 40 years later, after applying through Windrush scheme, Augustin still awaits a British passport.

While news of the fictional cartoon character Paddington Bear receiving a genuine British passport from the Home Office was “an insult", he says.

He said: “I can’t understand why they would spend the time and effort to think this is so important. People’s lives have been halted because of the Home Office not putting in the effort to help us.”

A spokesperson for the Home Office said: “It is a longstanding government policy that we do not comment on individual cases.”

David Lammy has been contacted for comment.