The Windrush Scandal has reminded people of when Theresa May blamed a cat for the failure to deport an illegal immigrant

As the fallout from the Windrush Scandal continues, the issue has prompted people to highlight the Theresa May’s attitude to immigration – including the time she wrongly said an illegal immigrant couldn’t be deported because he had a cat.

While Home Secretary in 2011, Mrs May told the Conservative Party Conference that Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights – the right to family life – had been used to prevent the removal of foreign national prisoners and illegal immigrants.

She said: “We all know the stories… about the illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because, and I am not making this up, he had a pet cat.”

But the Judicial Office later said the cat “had nothing to do with the decision” to allow the man to stay.

As Mrs May comes under fire over the Windrush Scandal, including claims that she is leading an “institutionally racist” Government, people have brought up ‘catgate’ as an example of her attitude towards immigrants.

Mrs May has come under fire after members of the Windrush generation were threatened with deportation and faced problems accessing healthcare and other state services due to the ‘hostile environment’ policy designed to clampdown on illegal immigrants introduced in 2014 when she was Home Secretary.

Widespread criticism has been made of the Prime Minister as well as current Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes.

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Labour MP David Lammy said the scandal had brought a “national day of shame” to Britain while Jeremy Corbyn accused the PM of “pandering to bogus immigration targets” during her time as Home Secretary.

The scandal has cast a spotlight on Mrs May’s attitude towards immigration.

Alongside the cat anecdote, some have referred to the controversial “go home” vans, which ran during a pilot scheme in 2013, that urged illegal immigrations to leave the country.

The vehicles, which were driven around six London boroughs with areas of high migration, have been linked to Mrs May’s “hostile environment” strategy.

The Prime Minister’s special advisor had claimed she had tried to block the vans, but official accounts appeared to contradict that claim.

The vans were scrapped after the pilot scheme after it emerged only 11 people had left the country as a direct result of them.