They denounce the increase in delays and rejections in the granting of residence permits in the United Kingdom, which affects thousands of EU citizens
The civic organization The3Million denounces “systematic failures” in the official settlement system in the United Kingdom for the community diaspora residing in the country before Brexit, which put their rights and access to subsidies recognized in the Union Withdrawal Agreement at risk Europe.
More than 5.4 million Europeans have obtained British immigration status since Brexit was consummated. The figure breaks initial estimates of three million residents entitled to so-called ‘settlement status’ (hence the name of the grassroots movement) and has not yet peaked. This June 30 marks one year since the official residency application deadline for those who were in the country prior to New Year’s Eve 2020, but the Ministry of the Interior continues to process forms.
“It is impossible to say how many real requests have been made,” warns Kuba Jablonowski, a researcher at the University of Exeter, at a meeting of the Foreign Journalists Association (FPA). By May 31, 6.6 million applications had been submitted (more than half a million after the supposed deadline), but it is unknown how many people have not managed and have become irregular, of their own free will or ignorance of the rule. . “It is a flawed system, which does not protect the vulnerable,” criticizes Nicolas Hatton, co-founder of The3Million, after noting that nothing indicates that “our fears were unfounded.”
The slope curve of a government response has dropped from 600,000 a year ago to 245,700 today. The delay is between six to twelve months in about half of the cases. And many have not even received the “application certificate”, which is required to rent a flat, open a bank account or access a job. The supervisory authority for the rights of citizens (IMA) has opened an investigation due to the high flow of complaints in this regard. This independent entity has also filed legal proceedings against the Government regarding the precarious situation of the 2.5 million community members who only obtained a temporary residence permit.
Dahaba Ali Hussen has exposed during the act of denunciation the chain of “bureaucratic errors” that Immigration committed when reviewing his case. From a Somali family and Dutch nationality, she has lived in the United Kingdom since she was a child, studied at Cambridge, has worked for the BBC and other British media, but was denied settlement status three times, as she recalled at the press conference. Her Romanian colleague, Andreea Dumitrache, was not allowed to board a flight from Mallorca to London, even though her documentation was in order.
Citizens of central Europe are the ones who have suffered the most bureaucratic obstacles since Brexit, according to The3Million. Also those who apply for a residence permit for non-European relatives suffer delays and rejections, which motivated the intervention of the IMA. On the other hand, the unions reproach the Executive of Boris Johnson for ignoring sentences of the Court of Justice of the EU that revalidate the right to state subsidies of the community with a temporary residence permit. “The government systematically violates the Brexit agreement on citizenship,” denounces Luke Piper, lawyer and director of strategy at The3Million.
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