Politician of Pakistani Descent Appointed Britain's New Home Secretary
British Prime Minister Theresa May appointed a new home secretary on Monday after suffering a blow with the resignation of Amber Rudd for having misled lawmakers over deportation targets for illegal immigrants.
May named SajidJavid, 48, as Rudd's replacement in the key ministerial post of home secretary after she quit late Sunday, facing anger over wrongful moves to deport legal but undocumented elderly immigrants from the Caribbean.
Rudd, under growing pressure over the so-called Windrush scandal, told lawmakers last week that there were no targets for the removal of people deemed to be in the country illegally.
But she felt it “necessary” to tender her resignation after the emergence of documents, addressed to her office, showing those goals were in place.
“I should have been aware of this, and I take full responsibility for the fact that I was not,” she said in her resignation letter to May, conceding that she “inadvertently misled the Home Affairs Select Committee”, the panel of MPs scrutinizing the work of her ministry.
Promoted from communities secretary, Javid's first task will be to take some of the political heat out of the Windrush scandal.
“Making sure that we have an immigration policy that is fair, treats people with respect and with decency -- that will be one of my most urgent tasks,” he told reporters.
Javid is the son of a Pakistani bus driver who arrived in Britain in 1961 with one pound in his pocket.
Javid said Sunday that the Windrush scandal felt “very personal” but urged people to concentrate on the government's efforts to rectify the situation.
A rapid riser in the government, Javid was a senior investment banker at Deutsche Bank before becoming a member of parliament in 2010.
He became a Treasury minister in 2013 and joined the Cabinet in 2014 as culture secretary before switching to business secretary in 2015 and communities secretary the following year.
He backed the losing Remain campaign in Britain's 2016 referendum on its European Union membership, but his pro-EU position was lukewarm.
James Brokenshire, who stepped down as Northern Ireland secretary in January to undergo lung operation, returned to cabinet to replace Javid in the housing, communities and local government brief.
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