Ijeoma Moore came to Britain from Nigeria as a toddler and is now 25. „I have lived here since I was two. I feel very…
Ijeoma Moore came to Britain from Nigeria as a toddler and is now 25. „I have lived here since I was two. I feel very much British,“ she said.
But two years after a scandal involving the „Windrush“ generation of 500,000 Caribbean migrants who came to Britain after World War Two, race and identity remain hot topics.
The death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, during a US police arrest has sparked a wave of Black Lives Matter protests across the country.
And there have been calls to take down colonial-era statues to figures who were involved in, or profited from, the international slave trade.
Moore said she cannot remember having studied colonialism at school and was shocked at the treatment of some of the Windrush migrants.
They were supposed to have been granted British citizenship but still had to prove every year they had a right to remain, under threat of expulsion.
„If that happened to them, what could happen to me?“ she asked.
Currently, Moore herself has only a limited right to remain in Britain, which means she has to renew her papers every 30 months.
It takes 10 years to get permanent resident status, and then another year to apply for British nationality in what she said was a „very complicated“ — and expensive — process.
„I think I paid £1,500 ($1,840,1,640 euros) the last time I made my application back in 2017. The next one is this year and the fees have increased again,“ she said.
„I am looking to pay at least £3,000 for my next application.
