RULES which subject EU citizens to deportation or job losses have been deemed unlawful in the High Court.
Under the current EU settlement scheme, EU citizens who had been in the country for less than five years before Brexit and who had “pre-settled status” are obliged to reapply to upgrade their status to “settled status” after being in the country for five years.
If they failed to do this, they would automatically lose their rights to reside, work, rent property or access services including the NHS, under Home Office rules. They were also liable to deportation.
But in a ruling released on Wednesday, the High Court decided this was unlawful in two ways.
The court ruled people with pre-settled status must not lose any residence rights they have under the Withdrawal Agreement just because they do not make a second application to the EU Settlement Scheme before the expiry of their pre-settled status.
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Justice Lane also said people with pre-settled status should not be denied permanent residence rights under the Withdrawal Agreement once they have reached the necessary period of 5 years’ lawful residence just because they do not make a second application under the scheme.
The UK Government has said it is disappointed and intends to appeal the decision.
The news has been welcomed by campaign group the3million - a grassroots organisation representing EU citizens in the UK.
Monique Hawkins, police and research officer, said: “We strongly welcome this judgment which stands to protect vulnerable citizens who are granted pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, and who could lose their right to work, rent, travel, benefits, healthcare and more - just for not making a further application in the years ahead.
"We are pleased that the judge agrees with the3million that the point of the EU Settlement Scheme is to create a clear distinction between those who are beneficiaries of the Withdrawal Agreement and those who are not. Once a beneficiary, people cannot lose their rights just by forgetting to make a second UK immigration application - the Withdrawal Agreement does not allow it.”
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Under the Brexit withdrawal agreement (WA), the UK and the EU agreed that both EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU could lawfully remain in the countries they lived in if they had settled there before Brexit.
But only the UK and Slovenia required citizens to make a second application to remain if they had been in the country for fewer than five years, the court was told.
Lane said he had “no reason to doubt” that the Home Office would support vulnerable people with pre-settled status but that the Withdrawal Agreement “precluded” the Home Office from imposing a requirement for further leave to be in the country as a “condition for retaining such rights”.
He said: “If the defendant is right, a very large number of people face the most serious uncertainty.”
Home Office minister Lord Murray said the government took its "obligations to securing their [EU citizens’] rights in the UK very seriously. The EU Settlement Scheme goes above and beyond our obligations under the Withdrawal Agreement, protecting EU citizens’ rights and giving them a route to settlement in the UK.
“We are disappointed by this judgment, which we intend to appeal.”
According to Home Office quarterly figures in September, 2.7 million of six million EU citizens granted status to remain in the UK post-Brexit had “pre-settled status”.
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