Victims of domestic violence and trafficking are among the EU citizens who could face a “hostile environment” if their applications to stay in Britain after Brexit fail, lawyers and campaigners are warning.
Vulnerable people, including the elderly, terminally ill, homeless and children in care, face falling through gaps in the EU settlement scheme, experts said as the system launches on Saturday.
Despite ministers today hailing the roll-out as a historic moment, campaigners said thousands of at-risk people could end up “undocumented” despite many having lived in the UK for decades.
“These groups will be undocumented and made illegal after the transition,” Minnie Rahman, of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said. “They will fall into the same category of people affected by the hostile environment and those detrimental aspects like right to rent checks and right to work checks.”
People with traumatic immigration histories could find their circumstances dredged up by the new system, another campaigner warned. Victims of trafficking, abuse, or refugees who fled conflict, could now be forced to prove their circumstances once more.
“A gentleman here in Cardiff had been trafficked and so doesn’t have any documentation and he’s concerned about that,” Wiard Sterk, an advocate at the3million campaign, which represents EU citizens in the UK, said. “Many of those concerned have had traumatic immigration backgrounds and finally felt secure – but it is all coming back up again.”
Sterk added that the much-criticised “hostile environment” policy, pursued by Theresa May as home secretary, never feels far away, despite recent efforts to present the scheme as a positive.
“All people say that if you phone up the Home Office helpline, the staff there are polite, extremely friendly, very willing to help – but not often able to help. They don’t have the tools and can only escalate or pass things on,” he said. “This is the whole concern we have is that the ‘hostile environment’ is still very much there in the background. When there are further complications or there is an issue then it goes into the wrong direction very quickly.”
Both Sterk and Rahman mentioned those affected by domestic violence were particularly vulnerable and may not have the ability to prove their EU background.
“One of my colleagues ran a session in the Midlands and a woman came to her quietly in tears and said, ‘my partner is abusive and has my passport’, so she couldn’t make her own application,” Sterk said. “If they do not apply before the cut-off date in 2021, they will be undocumented,” Rahman added.
The warnings came as those applying through the scheme on Saturday reported technical problems and outages.
Meanwhile, EU children in the care of local authorities face an uphill struggle to secure settled status, and the legal protection this affords, one lawyer said.
“There is not really a known quantity of how many EU children are in care,” Stewart MacLachlan, a lawyer with children’s charity Coram, said. “EU children in care will have to apply under the settlement scheme. There are a few issues around that. Not every local authority will not necessarily know which children might need advice and then getting those children advice is the next stage. They may not have documentation such as an EU passport from their home country or any kind of ID. Getting that can be quite difficult, as depending on the laws of EU countries, you may need the consent of parents to get it, but in many cases, parents may not be in the picture at all.”
Gillian Guy, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice, said an increasing number of EU nationals were contacting its nationwide network of branches to seek advice about the settled status scheme. Many were struggling to navigate the scheme’s computer system, much criticised last year for its reliance on a smartphone app which only runs on the Android operating system.
“Typically 1 in 3 of those who come to us for help need our support to use online services, forms, or tools,” Guy said. “The government’s allocation of funding for local groups to support people who need extra help is welcome, but we are concerned that it may be insufficient to meet the needs of everyone once the scheme is fully up and running.”
But Caroline Nokes, the immigration minister, said the scheme had been trialled in test phases by more than 200,000 EU citizens and that the government was investing millions to reach vulnerable applicants.
“My message to all EU citizens is that this is a simple and straightforward process and some of the personal experiences I’ve heard have been from EU citizens who received status in a matter of hours,” she said.
“Our nationwide marketing campaign is up and running, hundreds of thousands of people are receiving updates via email and up to £9m has been set aside to ensure the vulnerable are assisted with getting the status they are entitled to receive.”
The Home Office said it employed 1,500 to administer applications through the settled status scheme and added in a blog post that it was currently translating all materials into the languages of all EU member states, and Welsh.
What is the EU Settlement Scheme?
The EU Settlement Scheme is a completely free scheme, which will enable EU citizens resident in the UK and their family members to obtain the UK immigration status they will require in order to live and work in the UK after 30 June 2021.
EU citizens will only need to complete three key steps - prove their identity, show that that they live in the UK, and declare any criminal convictions.
Source: Gov.uk