Three Months and Deportation for Immigrant

from Dave Windsor The following report appeared in the 2nd of October Daily Telegraph: "Nirmala Mitha, 18, a South African-born Indian girl, was yesterday gaoled for three months at Bradford and recommended for deportation, She had pleaded guilty to failing to comply with a condition imposed by immigration officers when she arrived in this country from India in January. Mr, John Parker, prosecuting, said Mitha, a winder, of Ashgrove, Bradford, was given permission to stay in Britain for one month without taking employment, But she worked at a hosiery factory in Loughborough and later in a wool mill at Bradford, "Mr, Gareth Read, for Mitha, said she had lived in India since the age of 11 with her parents, who contracted a marriage for her under Hindu law with an Indian living in Britain, When she arrived here, not wishing to go through with the marriage, she took a job. She was accompanied on the flight to Britain by a friend who dealt with all the formalities at Gatwick Airport, and was never told verbally of the conditions imposed, which were stamped in English in her passport. She found no difficulty in obtaining National Insurance cards." This is evidently what Mr, Wilson means when he says the existing immigration laws will be tightened up. Would this young girl have been so treated had she been white? That is a question which all those who have any CouRt aout the racialist nature of the Government's White Paper should ask them, We have come a long way from Mr. Gaitskell's "Brotherhood of man" amendment to Clause Four. This measure must be fought all the way.