The UK Home Office has started stripping some EU citizens of their post-Brexit residency rights, in a move that has raised concerns about Britain’s compliance with its withdrawal agreement with Europe.
The UK internal affairs authority has told at least 100 people that they were given residency rights “in error”, disrupting their lives just as they come to the end of their five-year “pre-settled status” and prepare to upgrade to the permanent “settled status”.
A Portuguese woman working in the NHS and researching a PhD in Britain says her life has been turned upside down after being told by the Home Office she was granted post-Brexit rights to live in the country “in error”.
She was granted pre-settled status under the EU settlement scheme, similar to 1.3 million others who had been in the country for fewer than five years before the UK left the EU.
She had expected that this would be upgraded to settled status without issue and was dismayed when the Home Office told her her status was a mistake.
“I feel so overwhelmed, because this is going to influence so many spheres of my life,” said Gabriela, whose name has been changed to protect her identity. She said she was fearful of the hostile environment that may kick in if her legal right to stay in the UK expired.
“I can lose my job, I maybe don’t have the right even to rent the property that I’m living in now, because of course I have to prove my right to live here to the landlord to rent a place.
“My bank account might also be affected. I work in the NHS as well, I work with other surgeries as well, so I have three different contracts in different places and I don’t know how it’s going to be if this happens, It’s just very stressful.”
Gabriela is one of more than 1 million EU citizens who were granted “pre-settled status” to remain legally in the UK because they had been in the country for fewer than five years before Brexit.
The Home Office is now reviewing the cases of those who are required to apply to have their status upgraded to full “settled status”, including children, non-European Economic Area (EEA) citizens and anyone who arrived after 31 December 2020.
It declined to say how many people it had written to, but through a freedom of information request the3million campaign group has been told that 95 people were contacted in March alone.
Gabriela is Brazilian-Portuguese, however she did not have a Portuguese passport at the time of her application, something that is now being questioned by the Home Office.
In a five-page letter, the Home Office said: “It has come to our attention that you were granted pre-settled status without the evidence required to confirm that you meet the definition of ‘relevant EEA citizen’ before midnight 31 December 2020, when the UK legally cut ties with the EU.
“On the basis of the information and evidence that is currently available, it is therefore considered that your pre-settled status was granted in error,” it added.
Gabriela said she had been totally open with the Home Office and had “not excluded anything” including the fact that her father is Portuguese, making her an EU citizen by birth.
“Citizenship is by blood so it is not something I have changed since I was born,” she said.
Monique Hawkins, the acting chief executive of the3million, said the impact of the Home Office’s retrospective review was devastating for many.
The group has knowledge of dozens of cases but fears there may be hundreds or thousands like Gabriela who will be hit by similar letters threatening removal from the country.
“People applied to the EU settlement scheme in good faith and were granted status by the Home Office years ago. They acted on those decisions in good faith by building their lives in the UK and putting down roots.
“We hear from people who are progressing in their jobs, from those whose children are in schools and have known no other country, and now, five years on, when they apply for settled status, they are being told that it was all a mistake. Imagine building a life somewhere and having it ripped out from under you like this.”
Gabriela is appealing against the Home Office decision but the issue of “in error” cases has raised alarm bells at the Independent Monitoring Authority (IMA), the statutory body set up to monitor the implementation of the EU citizens chapter of the EU-UK withdrawal agreement (WA).
In a statement, it said it “has raised concerns with the Home Office that the policy may be incompatible with the EU withdrawal agreement”.
Hawkins said that under the WA, status “should only be removed if it is genuinely proportionate to do so”, but said “the Home Office is simply side-stepping that … entirely”.
She said the approach was “completely unacceptable” and called on the Home Office to reconsider its policy.
The Home Office said it had a longstanding policy not to routinely comment on individual cases.
It said people who it judged had been granted status in error could apply to remain through other inmigration routes such as visa stays.
It added that it would allow people to stay until their pre-settled status had expired, during which time they could seek alternative arrangements. They could also apply for full settled status, and if that was refused, legally they could appeal.
