Home Office U-turns on rights of EU citizens who were in UK pre-Brexit
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The Home Office has made a significant U-turn on the rights of EU citizens who were in the UK before Brexit.
It is going to reverse a rule it made in August that barred those who mistakenly applied for permanent residency cards after the referendum to make a late application for EU settled status if they were unaware of the specially created immigration scheme.
However, campaigners say the decision must be backed by more explicit wording in guidance to case workers, otherwise EU citizens will end up having to “beg” for their rights to be recognised.
The change follows a series of stories of EU citizens facing devastating consequences.
EU citizens living in the UK and Britons living in the EU before Brexit have the lifelong right to remain in the country they were living in under the Brexit withdrawal agreement.
The government launched the EU settlement scheme to document the near 6 million EU citizens in the country. The scheme closed in June 2021, but late applications were considered on “reasonable grounds”.
Problems arose last August in a Home Office crackdown. New rules removed “lack of awareness” of the settlement scheme as a reasonable ground for a late application.
The decision caused significant difficulties for EU citizens, including one Italian restaurateur who had been paying tax in the UK for 21 years but overnight found his bank account frozen by Santander, forcing him to close his business as he could not pay staff or suppliers.
Campaigners estimate that potentially tens of thousands of EU citizens applied for permanent residency cards after 2016..
After succumbing to pressure from campaigners and EU citizens, the Home Office has published new guidance to case workers, telling them late applications from those with permanent residency cards “are reasonable grounds” for delays in application to the scheme.
However, the campaign group the3million described the change as a partial victory, as the updated guidance is not as explicit as it could be.
Instead of stating that late applications from EU citizens with permanent residency cards are allowable, the Home Office gives a convoluted example of someone in such a situation.
Separately, concerns about the Home Office have been raised in relation to its response to a high court ruling on the EU settlement scheme.
The high court had sided with the statutory body set up to protect EU citizens’ rights, the Independent Monitoring Authority, which claimed it was wrong to remove the employment, residency and healthcare rights of those with pre-settled status (for those in the UK for less than five years before Brexit) if they had forgotten to apply to upgrade to settled status once they were eligible.
In response, the Home Office has given a two-year extension to those with pre-settled status in the belief this would cover any gap for those who forgot to reapply.
Campaigners say this means employers and landlords or banks could interpret this extension as a legally risky temporary status and remove an individual’s rights.
