EU Citizens In UK Face 28-Day Notice If They Miss Settled Status Deadline

 

Tens of thousands of EU citizens residing in the UK will be issued with a formal 28-day notice if they have failed to apply for post-Brexit settled status within a week, the government has warned.

The notices will inform them to submit an application or risk penalties which include losing their rights to healthcare and employment.

With a week to go before the Wednesday 30 June deadline for the EU settlement scheme, the Home Office is redoubling efforts to reach those who do not know about the rule change, inclusive of prone groups such as aged people and children in care.

Immigration minister Kevin Foster stated it had ruled out extending the closing date despite a massive surge in applications, now running at 10,000 to 12,000 a day. “Put simply, extending the deadline is not the solution to reaching those people who have not yet applied, and we would just be in a position further down the line where we would be requested to extend again, creating extra uncertainties,” he said.

However, he stated EU citizens who had had failed to apply by the closing date would not see their social welfare benefits cut off from 1 July and promised the Home Office would be flexible and lenient.

The Home Office has had 5.6m settled status applications from EU citizens including some repeats. Officials revealed a backlog of 400,000 which may take till the end of the summer to process.

It has received 1.5m helpline calls and 500,000 requests for help thru an online contact form – an indication of the unprecedented scale of the exercise and the challenges many are facing.

To accommodate those who will not have a decision for months, the government will issue a “certificate of application” which all applicants can “rely on as proof to access their right to work or rent”, Foster said. It can additionally be used to access the NHS. “People will not lose their benefits subsequent week,” Foster informed members of a House of Lords committee.

In a briefing to journalists on Tuesday, the Home Office stated it would work with individuals to discover out their reasons for not applying rather than deport them.

“We’ll set up the support available and we’ll signpost people to make an application, but we do recognise that there may be some people who, after that 28 days, still haven’t been capable to make an application, and then I assume we would want to work with them to apprehend why that is the case, and then assist them again to make the application,” stated an official.

The flexible strategy is not expected to be permanent, however, and under immigration policies EU citizens who make late applications will have to provide “reasonable grounds” for not applying. Among those set to be issued with a 28-day notice are EU citizens unable to proof their right to work, who might be identified by immigration enforcement teams making checks on employers.