Sajid Javid must act now to right the wrongs of the latest immigration scandal

It’s only been a year since the Windrush scandal broke, but a very similar tale is issuing from the very same place – the Home Office, during Theresa May’s time there. Again, a hostile environment towards illegal immigrants leaked into the rights of those who are entitled to stay here. Thousands have been unfairly deported or blocked from getting visas. Many have then been left in limbo for far too long, their appeals for justice ignored.

This time, the scandal involves students and an English language test. The test of English for international communication (Toeic) was introduced as a compulsory part of a visa application programme. In 2014, Panorama found clear evidence that candidates were cheating at at least two test centres. In one, an invigilator was filmed reading out the answers to candidates. In another, paid proxies turned up to take the test for them.

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The Home Office took it seriously. It not only punished those actually caught cheating on the test – but, it seems, almost everyone who happened to be taking it at the time. Some 34,000 students had their visas curtailed or cancelled. Around 1,000 were forcibly removed from the UK. Several of those accused have argued they speak fluent English – they are PhD students or studying English literature degrees.

For many, the consequences have been devastating. They have been chucked out of higher education courses, costing them thousands. Many say they have wasted years, and more money, trying to clear their names. Then there is the shame of being accused of cheating, with which they have had to live, causing trouble with families, and making many reluctant to stand up for their rights.

How was this mistake made? Why weren’t “lessons learned” after the fury over Windrush, and appeals for justice listened to? Could it just be that the Home Office is this incompetent? Or is there another reason that, at a time when the government was set on bringing down immigration, it started throwing people out of the country on flimsy grounds?

Logic and experience suggest something more sinister – a departmental bias towards removing as many people as possible, leading to a callous disregard for the human beings they dealt with. When David Cameron made the fateful promise – how many sentences must now begin that way? – to stick to a precise cap on immigration, he set in motion a chain of events that would result in officials looking for any reason to deny someone the right to stay in the country. Theresa May’s enthusiasm for the cause – her hostile environment, and the “go home” vans – helped fuel it.

It is up to the current home secretary, Sajid Javid, to set right this latest wrong, and quickly. His predecessor Amber Rudd bungled the Windrush scandal: it was not her mess, but such was the level of public anger by the time she attempted to sort it, that a misstep cost her the job. Meanwhile the country’s EU citizens are nervously filling in application forms for settled status, and the process has already been widely criticised as mismanaged.

Javid is preparing to fight a Tory leadership battle. It would be prudent – as well as moral – to get on with it.

• Martha Gill is a political journalist and former lobby correspondent