European citizens who have applied for settled status are being detained and threatened with deportation, a development that contradicts assurances from ministers and appears to contravene the Brexit withdrawal agreement.
The Home Office has served EU nationals with removal directions even though they could prove they had applied for settled status, which should protect their rights to remain in the UK.
According to The Guardian, Ministers have repeatedly promised that anyone who had applied by the 30 June deadline would have their existing rights protected while their case was heard.
The apparent failure to honor that agreement has prompted accusations of either “administrative incompetence” by Home Office officials or a “willful” attempt to deport as many EU nationals as possible on the assumption they are easier to remove, for instance than asylum seekers.
A letter from the legal charity Bail for Immigration Detainees (Bid) to the head of immigration enforcement, dated 29 July, raises concerns over the Home Office’s failure to acknowledge receipt of settled status applications in cases where it wants to deport EU citizens.
Bid says that unless a meaningful response is received from the Home Office by the end of this week, it will make an official complaint to the European Commission.
Lawyers argue it marks an important battle to protect the rights of EU nationals following Brexit. They warn that the failure to acknowledge applications could potentially affect thousands of individuals.
On Friday an EU citizen whom the Home Office wanted to deport, and who had been detained in an immigration removal center, secured their release on bail after a judge accepted that they could not be removed because they had made a EUSS application.
Even so, the Home Office still contested their release and offered no apology or explanation why it had earlier argued there was no evidence of the application at a previous hearing and therefore could deport them.
The numbers affected could be significant. For instance, out of 1,500 inmates at Wandsworth prison, south London, almost 500 are believed to be EU nationals.
Aware of such difficulties ministers have promised an indefinite period where people who had not applied would be allowed to do so if they had reasonable grounds