IT is a damning indictment of what kind of country we are becoming when we hear stories of people who have been here legally for decades being deported or denied healthcare for no reason other than a failed bureaucracy.

Let us not forget that the Government’s hostile environment to immigrants impacts more than just the Windrush generation. It poisons the very fabric of our society. It forces landlords, doctors, police officers and others to be suspicious of everyone who could be a so-called illegal immigrant.

Immigrants, whether they arrived in 1948 or 2018, are our neighbours, our friends and our children’s classmates.

Respect, love and a good welcome is what they deserve. This government must stop treating them like the enemy within and focus on allowing them to live here unhindered by prejudice, hostility and fear.

Dr Peter Hirst Middlewich