The home secretary is apologising to 18 members of the Windrush generation believed to have been wrongfully removed or detained.
A Home Office review identified the group as having come to the UK from the Caribbean before 1973 and stayed permanently, but were unable to prove their continued residence in the country.
Of the group of 18, the review found 11 left the UK voluntarily while the remaining seven were detained but subsequently released without being removed.
The Home Office has so far contacted 14 of the 18, with those who are not currently in the UK being given the option to return and made aware of their possible right to compensation.
Sajid Javid said: “The experiences faced by some members of the Windrush generation are completely unacceptable and I am committed to righting the wrongs of the past.
We must do everything we can to ensure that nothing like this happens again which is why I have asked an independent adviser to look at what lessons we can learn from Windrush.
The figures were revealed in a letter from Mr Javid to Labour MP Yvette Cooper, the chair of the House of Commons’ home affairs committee, in which he provided an update on the government’s response to the Windrush scandal.
Earlier this year, Mr Javid’s predecessor Amber Rudd resigned as home secretary amid the scandal over the treatment of the Windrush generation; who are named after the cruise ship that brought one of the first large groups of West Indians to Britain.
Anyone who entered the UK before 1973 is legally entitled to live in the country but, despite having been in the UK for the majority of their lives, many began to experience issues as a result of tightened immigration requirements.
Critics blamed Prime Minister Theresa May for the Windrush scandal, after she chased a hostile environment strategy towards illegal immigration during her own time as home secretary.
However, in his letter to Ms Cooper, Mr Javid said the Home Office analysis of Windrush cases exposes problems which have happened over many years, under multiple governments.
The Home Office highlighted how cases of removal and detention happened over many years, with cases spread roughly equally between 2002-2010 and from 2010 onwards.
She said: The government has still not got a final figure on how many of our fellow citizens were deported, forced into so-called voluntary removals or detained as prisoners in their own country.
It is an insult that the home secretary has still failed to confirm when the promised compensation scheme will be up and running, after so many of our fellow citizens have been left destitute, in debt and jobless by the Government’s hostile environment.