Who needs deportation with this shame?

How would you cope if the government demanded you provide four pieces of documentary evidence for every year you've lived in the country?

I know I'd struggle. But up until earlier this week that was exactly what the Home Office wanted from people who've been living here, working here, paying taxes and being citizens, if they wanted to remain somewhere that's been home for decades.

Reading in Berkshire has the biggest Bajan community outside Barbados, and that's where Norma Parris lives. She is Chair of the National Council of Barbadians and says the Home Office Policy of creating a hostile environment for illegal immigrants caused misery for those who came to Britain entirely legally.

Norma Parris "Apology is not enough. It's the stress, the impact on people's lives. "

Norma rejects the Prime Minister's apology saying "Apology is not enough. It's the stress, the impact on people's lives. "

And she says the new offers of assistance have prevented people feeling they shouldn't be in the country. "Someone returned to Barbados yesterday despite all the promises. Because they felt they should have been able to do something about it but didn't."

And Norma Parris says the policy was not only callous, it was racist. "Some of it is a racist policy. When people think of the EU they think of white people. When you think Commonwealth you think black. Straight back to 1942 - no dogs, no blacks, no Irish."

That's a claim rejected by Conservative MP for Southampton Itchen Royston Smith. Whilst he says apologies are very much in order for the way Windrush migrants were treated he says the problem is one of bureaucracy.

"I don't recognise the racism. When you look at the reasons for Brexit it was not Commonwealth people that people were worried about. That's never come across to me ever. People from Eastern Europe have come quickly and their lives have changed."

He says the public demanded issues on illegal immigration, benefits fraud and health tourism. "We were looking for people who weren't entitled to come to this country. I don't believe for a second it's a soft racist target, I think people have just been caught up in the documentation issues."

For Labour though, MEP Clare Moody argued there were two failures by government. "The environment that was created was stated hostility, and the way people were treated was that if there was a question mark there was a presumption of guilt. But the second question is over competence. It's taken four years for them to sort out these cases."

And Norma Parris says it's still not sorted, with incorrect information being given on the new Home Office hotline - a biometric identity card the governemnt says was free, but someone told this weekend it would cost £229. "If this is such headline news" she asks "why are ministers not catching up with what is being said by their own teams?"