British Prime Minister Theresa May appointed a former banker of South Asian origin as interior minister on Monday, trying to draw a line under an immigration scandal threatening her authority as she negotiates Brexit.

Sajid Javid, the son of immigrants from Pakistan, replaces Amber Rudd, who quit as Home Secretary after acknowledging she had "inadvertently misled" Parliament by denying the government had targets for the number of illegal migrants Britain deports.

British ministers have struggled for two weeks to explain why some descendants of the so-called Windrush generation, invited to Britain from its former colonies to plug labor shortfalls between 1948 and 1971, were denied basic rights.