UKC

So the UK government has abruptly changed their policy on what would happen to E.U. citizens coming to the UK after no-deal. 

As opposed to the previous policy, which would have given them pre-settled status until 2020, and allowed for a smooth transition, they are now asserting that anybody coming after the 29th of March will need a visa to stay and work.

This is going to be highly problematic for EU citizens already in the UK.

Indeed, there will be no easy reliable way for employers, banks, NHS and indeed immigration enforcement to distinguish between those who came before and came after, until every EU citizens currently in the UK can get settled status.

Which is likely to take several years, and is already proving problematic with many applications rejected for no reason, many more just left pending, and many elderlies who have no idea they need to apply or how to apply.

Frankly I fail to understand the vile attitude of T May and Javid towards foreigners who have done nothing but work hard and pay taxes.

Moreover; the new immigration bill creates a new system that threats migrants as nothing but pure economic assets with absolutely no prospect to ever settle, and no rights to public funds, nhs, etc etc.

Am I missing something ? Can someone explain what foreigners in this country have done so wrong to deserve such ill-treatment ?

What's the source for this?

In general though, the Tory party has shrugged off all pretences of not being the "nasty party".

youtube.com/watch?v=sg-4ATrE8n0&

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-outlines-no-deal-arrangements...

Or listen to Javid’s speech,

Another very dangerous consequence of no-deal for EU citizens in the UK is that they would have no right of judicial redress if the home office wrongly refuses them settled status (or removes it from them later on for no reason)

Given a typical home office error rate of 10% (if we are very kind), this is pretty scary.

the web page confirms :-

"Let me be clear. This policy does not apply to those here before exit day, whose rights to live and work will be protected by the EU Settlement Scheme. We want them to stay and value them hugely."

so it should not immediately be a problem for those already in the country?

They have the misfortune to be pawns in a game where only one side is playing by the rules.

Trying to persuade the EU to revise their deal by threatening a no deal if they don't. Even though this is the painfully negotiated deal that both sides agreed to before Christmas.

It's the old 'if you don't agree to my demands I'll cut off my own fingers one by one' ploy. That'll show em!

In theory, but not in practice.

They need to register 3.5 million EU citizens. It will take years. The trial with model candidates already exposed serious flaws and wrongful refusals. The applicants would have no right of judicial redress whatsoever in the courts, so effectively the home office can take any decision it wants in total impunity.

During that time, how are banks, landlords, employers, NHS make the distinction between those who are entitled to settled status and those who aren’t ? Given the fines if you get it wrong they’ll just reject them by default: that’s what we call the hostile environment. Even border force would be unable to make the distinction between an EU citizens who has lived in the UK for 20 years returning from a holiday, and someone coming to the country to seek work.

This is exactly what happened to Windrush: they had full rights to be in the country but no way to prove it, so they found themselves ostracised.

The WA has very strong protections which have been demanded by the EU. It would provide legal certainty to EU citizens during that transition. It’s a very good deal for both Brits in the E.U. and EU citizens in Britain.

However in the case of no-deal; this all falls through. And there is no indication that the UK would ratify the citizens part of the WA.

As a matter on fact in the Tory leak of the alternative to the current WA, protections the current WA grants to E.U. citizens are classed in the « disadvantages » section. That is what they really think. From from their disingenuous rethoric  of “you are valued etc etc” their actions are aimed at tightening the screws as much as they can on EU citizens.

That tells you everything you need to know.

How would a person prove they were "here before exit day"*? What if the home office refuses to accept any evidence provided, or gets it wrong, or some bored case officer just can't be bothered?

Why should a business or bank or landlord take the risk of offering a job, mortgage or accommodation to someone who might be deported at any moment at the whim of a civil servant or private contractor?

Tories reverting to their natural form, aided and abetted by Labour in this case.

* Whatever that means

It shouldn't be, were it not for the fact that we have one of the least competent departments imaginable in charge of the process. For example, EU citizens already here can apply using a smartphone app. Unfortunately, this app only works on Android phones, so anyone with an iPhone is already at a disadvantage. This problem has been known for months, and is as yet unresolved. (This may of course be a cunning ruse to rid the country of Apple users, but I somehow doubt the Home Office works to this level of sophistication.)

And, as was the case with many of the Windrush generation, the Home Office appears to be a law unto itself when it comes to picking and choosing which documentation to accept as proof of residence. The fact that the Home Office chose not to allow tax and NI records for this group of people does not suggest that all will go swimmingly.  

Note the mention in this article of the Finn who has been living in Sheffield since 2001 who is using her telephone contract (well, actually just number!) and constant gym membership as evidence of her settled status here: https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/uk_finns_brace_for_brexit_i_feel_a_bit_s... For some its going to get quite silly I suspect, although it maybe the Home Office will just nod most through on even quite flimsy evidence. 

In my family my partner has been constantly employed from within weeks of us arriving and my children have been attending schools and receiving child benefit for the same period, so I don't think showing residence should be too difficult. But the randomness of it all if there is no deal is pretty terrifying, and how even without mal-intent bureacracies mess up and grind on over people's actual lives.

There is also the problem that without a WA, there is no permanence whatsoever to settled status. It can be removed at any time, or the rights associated with it can be rescinded at any time.

Given the history of the UK giving permanent residence or ILR to people and then later on cancel their status, this isn’t reassuring.

Isn't Javid's new policy actually pretty much exactly what is available to EU countries anyway under current EU law?

Just another example of something which we could do perfectly well without leaving the EU if we wanted to. The only reason we haven't been doing it is because it is seen as being bad economically.

Alan

Hi Alan, sadly it is radically different.

Under current EU rules, E.U. citizens can come to the UK freely, and if they find a job, or are self sufficient, or are a family member etc etc, they can stay as long as they want as long as they fall within the scope of FoM. 

Under the new plans, and only during a couple of years, EU citizens coming to the UK will have to apply for a visa if they want to stay more than three months, and that will be limited to three years. It gives no right to settle whatsoever.

After this “transition” all E.U. citizens fall under the draconian tier2 regime, which is being further beefed up.

They also plan to introduce one year work visas for “low skill” immigration, which you can not renew immediately, and therefore can never settle with, and give no right to public funds, no NHS, no pension, etc etc. Basically creating an endless supply of cheap, disposable workforce with no rights and no incentive to integrate.

They have also recently changed the rules for EU citizens in regards to citizenship. They will now need to wait one year after the obtention of their settled status to claim citizenship, no matter how long you have been in the country, even if it’s 30 or 40 years.

The objective of that is obvious: there are plans under the hood to make access to British citizenship a lot harder next year. Adding this one year requirement prevents all the EU citizens with settled status applying for citizenship before the new beefed up rules (and probably costs) are introduced. Understandably, the tories will never let the 3.5 millions EU citizens they have abused and humiliated become citizens and vote.

Moreover the bill gives sweeping powers to ministers to make big changes to immigration law without direct parliamentary approval.

The overall philosophy of the new post-brexit immigration system is to treat immigrants as pure economic assets, with much lower rights, who are there only for the maximum financial benefits of the native, and to break completely the link between residence, settlement and citizenship.

I for one, find all this extremely concerning and makes me sick to my stomach. This will be the biggest impact of Brexit on people lives, and yet the focus seems to be on backstops and trade...

Are you sure that is not one year after the year the status became valid, rather than one year after you actually apply and get proof of it? As it used to be the latter, if you applied and had evidence of lawful residence starting 10 years ago, the date your settled status started from was 5 years ago, allowing immediate application for citizenship.

Basically, can I have a citation for what you stated, as it would affect me personally.

Yes this used to be the case with EU permanent residence, but this isn't the case with settled status which will replace it. It's another way in which the rights of EU citizens in the UK are being reduced (despite what the government said and the promises of the leave campaign)

"If you intend to apply for British citizenship, you might as well continue with your permanent residence application. This is because you will need to show that you acquired permanent residence one year before the date of your application for British citizenship (unless you are the spouse of a British citizen, in which case you will simply need to show that you have permanent residence). If you wait until the new system comes into place, you will need to wait 12 months after being granted settled status to apply for British citizenship, irrespective of how long you have lived in the UK."

https://www.freemovement.org.uk/how-to-apply-for-settled-status-temporary-s...

It seems pretty obvious to me that this is designed to allow time for the government to change the rules and make naturalisation arbitrary hard/expensive and avoid having 3 millions of EU citizens getting citizenship and voting against them at the next GE.... The only exception is if you are married to a British citizen, in which case you can apply for citizenship directly...

Splendid...

Thanks, I should have known it’d be Free Movement, it’s a goldmine of information.

Id say payslips? housing rental contracts, mortgage agreement, car tax, to name but a few? or am I missing something!!

Quick question.

If you were born in another country (ie France) but have a British Passport and have lived here for say 70 years. I presume you are OK?

no, what you say should be enough, but......

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/15/why-the-children-of-windrus...

Especially the first lady who actually worked in the houses of parliament. /if she was genuinely here illegally, surely this would have been discovered during her or her employer obtaining security clearance, which i would like to think is mandatory for the HoP.

The second one had approx 40 years worth of payslips and tax records, but that apparently wasnt good enough......

If you have a British passport, yes, you should be ok.

Surely not. Her father was a vicar you know!

Seems like getting it sorted on your own before "them evils" decided to twist the rules was the only safe option...pity it wasn't available to all. I can breathe a sigh of relief for myself... but not so for quite a few fellow EU citizens.

Some people on here are still thinking that the home office is a helpful entity... not to foreigners in the lend. To them, only sets of barriers (admin, education, monetary)  are to be available. It has hardened its rules as per popular demand: rightly or wrongly, this land has become that bit more closed to the outside world.

Just sorted out my settled status, which seems to correspond to ILR. One rather worrying thing about it is that it is *online only*. There is no hard copy of any documentation, it all lives on a database. While it obviously would ultimately live on a database, having no hard copies of any sort does ring some Windrush-style alarm bells in my head.

Also, the government added an exception to GDPR, you do not have access to the information held on you by the home office, you have no right to get it corrected if it is wrong, and they are not even required to process your data lawfully.

Meaning they can « erase » you with one keyboard stroke. Ho, and in case of no deal, there is no right of judicial recourse.

But don’t worry everybody knows that computer systems never fails, especially those of the governement, and the home office can be trusted to treat people fairly. LOL.

May I asked how long it took for you to get settled status ? My mate who worked in the UK for 20 years applied on the 21st and he is still waiting for an answer, he is starting to get really worried because everybody else seem to have got it within 3 days.

I applied on Saturday, got it this morning. I was rather surprised at how quick it was, to the point that I would question whether a human was involved, beyond a single click.

Thanks, glad you had no issues. not very reassuring for my friend though.

shocking isn't it!!! I really don't understand their target???

We’ve also discovered the status is NOT permanent. It expires with your passport. We do not know yet how it can be renewed and under which conditions.

This isn't true, according to my Polish housemate who has applied for it and got it.  But you do have to notify the Government of your new passport number each time you renew it.

The only thing that automatically ends it is leaving the country for more than 2 years in one go.

The documentation states that you need to notify them of passport changes, not that you need to reapply. The website has a form for doing so.

The documentation has the following statement on this:

"To keep your online status up to date, you will need to tell us if you change your passport
or national identity card for any reason. As most passports and national identity cards
expire every 10 years, you will probably need to inform the Home Office within the next 10
years of the details of your replacement documentation."

How much do you want to bet there will be conditions attached, asking of extra evidence, moving of the goal posts ?

What is true is that it is a purely digital status that can be erased / invalidated, and I case of no deal, there is no right to appeal for anything.

If there is no WA, there will be nothing permanent about it.

It’s 5 years, for now, but this is exactly the problem, whenever it needs to be updated, they might ask you to prove you’ve not been away for 5 years. That amounts to an application.

In this particular case I do not see how there could be. Nowhere is it stated that ILR is linked to your passport, plus there is no way the EU wouldn’t kick up a fuss blowing up any possible deals now and in future, they are much better than the British government at minute detail.

What the home office is great at is deport now and deal with the consequences of illegal decisions later, hoping that once the person is out of the country they will not have the resources to sue. That might work against helpless individuals from third world countries but Europeans do have significantly more resources than that to chase up issues where the law is on their side.

Is it 5 or 2? Citizenship is certainly 5, but its not as clear cut as just that - there are various additional rules. For residency its definately 2 - https://www.gov.uk/returning-resident-visa, and there are various cases similar to windrush of people being repatriated because they forgot / didnt know they had to reapply for a residency visa, and fell foul of the "hostile environment policy.

All said, this is with the proviso that the home office are well known to be "not quite achieving best practice" when it comes to fairness / even handedness, so I suspect its all a bit more of a gamble than it should be.....

It is currently indeed two, with the following notice:

"Parliament will be invited to amend UK immigration law in line with a final agreement with
the EU on citizens' rights, so that you can then be absent from the UK for up to five
consecutive years before your settled status lapses."

IMO, for the home office to improve, May and her ilk need to leave government.

Well the main issue is that they change the rules as they go along to screw people.

Say you are an E.U. citizen who cane before the E.U.

you would have been given “indefinite leave to remain”

Then this would have effectively been cancelled since they have no record of it.

then you would have gotten “permanent residence”

That’s now being cancelled.

Now you have to apply for “settled” status. How long is this one going to last ?

It’s not a question of ressource. If you have no right of judicial appeal, which will be the case in case of no-deal, then there is absolutely nothing you can do no matter how many millions you have in the bank.

In special cases you can have a recourse if your case falls under the EChR. But it’s very limited. And in any case the UK is almost certain to leave the ECHR soon after Brexit.

Thats the issue with immigration enforcement in the country. It operates outside the law. In most countries it would be completely illegal for ex to put people in jail indefinitely without trial. But in the UK it’s routine.

Most of the odd wrangling of the law at the home office seems to have happened under May. Her policies are already the reason I don’t already have British citizenship even though I’ve been here for nearly 15 years. Now she’s running the country. That shouldn’t have happened. It has happened and she and anyone as authoritarian as she must go before they damage things even more than she already has.

About the right to judicial appeal, that is not the only way to apply pressure when the country intends to continue trading with the EU.

Indeed, it shouldnt have happened. I’m deeply ashamed that my country treats you and other this way.

Well, when you need to rely on political favour in order to be able to live in your home country, you know it’s no longer a democracy.