Celia's Story | We need the Home Office to work with us to ensure vulnerable people aren’t left behind in the EU Settlement Scheme

Celia supports EU citizens with immigration advice to secure their status in the UK.

She works for IRMO (Indoamerican Refugee and Migrant Organisation) who support Latin Americans and other Spanish and Portuguese speakers living in the UK, by offering high quality information and advice services, opportunities for development and training, and a platform to seek social and systemic change.

“I worked for many years as a City solicitor representing international banking clients, but was also close to the Latin American community as a result of my marriage to a Colombian student who I met in the late 1990s. 

"I learned through my experiences with my wife how hostile the immigration system is for new arrivals in the UK and how difficult it is for families who include members with different nationalities to win the right to stay together. I took early retirement from my work in the City in order to find a voluntary role in which I could work for the rights of migrants and for a fairer system, and found a natural fit with IRMO.

It’s now been a year since the deadline to the EU Settlement Scheme and we are still seeing a high number of cases where vulnerable people need to apply late due to their specific circumstances.

People are facing long waiting times, and as a volunteer adviser, I see on a daily basis how this insecurity and instability leads to deep concern. In many cases, we’re talking about being in limbo for more than 6 months, and even more than a year, uncertain of what the future holds.

Various publications from the Home Office (such as the guidance for applicants) claim the Home Office wants to be helpful for applicants who have difficulties providing residence evidence. Published guidance states that a wide range of evidence can be taken into account. The guidance also claims that if you do not have enough evidence: "we'll work with you to confirm when you've been resident in the UK based on all the evidence available." 

We heard many comments, especially at the beginning of the EU Settlement Scheme, about case workers looking for grounds to grant rather than refuse applications. In the last few weeks, I’ve noticed a shift in attitude. I help many EU citizens who have arrived in the UK in late 2020. They should have the same rights under the Withdrawal Agreement as anyone else who has arrived at any point before the end of the transition period on 31st Dec 2020.

I invite you to cast your mind back to this time of global uncertainty, of the Covid-19 crisis which was dominating all of our lives. For people I’m supporting, this means the catch 22 that most people are caught up in the first time they move to the UK was even more difficult.

Most people didn’t have their name on a rental agreement, council tax or utility bills in their own names. It is effectively impossible for a recent immigrant to open an account with a high street bank, whose account opening checks eliminate most people without a financial history in the UK. They didn’t work in a conventional PAYE job straight away, for their tax records to be identified by the Home Office.

It is therefore practically impossible to find evidence of the types listed in the Home Office guidance to determine someone was living in the UK. If I’ve previously seen an acceptance of this inevitability in some people’s lives and acceptance of more unconventional evidence, there has recently been a change. Evidence is being rejected on highly technical and sometimes totally spurious grounds.

"Where does this leave people? For the most vulnerable it’s a recipe for disaster." 

"For example, a young mother who’s been going through a custody battle in her home country has been waiting for over a year for a decision on her EUSS application. It’s taken her months to get a national insurance number with just a Certificate of Application. She was convinced, until IRMO advised her differently, that she had no right to work in the UK until her application was determined. She has been charged for the use of the NHS. She’s deeply distressed, needing to bring her child to live with her in the UK.

In another case, a woman came to the UK to work in the domestic service of a wealthy family. In a bid to avoid UK employment law and tax, the employer went to great lengths to conceal her presence in the UK. They prohibited her from registering with a GP and paid her salary into a Spanish bank account under a fake contract designed to suggest that she was working in Marbella.

In previous similar cases, we have been able to obtain status for applicants on the basis of very little evidence, usually something unconventional. However, since August 2022 we have been receiving rejections of evidence on the thinnest and most technical grounds: for example online banking statements have been rejected because the bank is not a high street bank; an official document was rejected because it was sent to the applicant by e mail; a letter from a child's school was rejected on grounds so fine as to be barely intelligible. We have also seen a number of cases in which documents were rejected on spurious grounds which the Home Office later retracted.

The government has been told time and time again how the EU Settlement Scheme has the potential to become “Windrush on steroids”. 

To avoid more suffering and show commitment to the lessons learnt from the Windrush scandal, we need the Home Office to work with EU citizens and advisers such as myself in good faith and in accordance with their own published guidance.”

To find out more about IRMO, if you need immigration, housing or social welfare advice, or want to connect with your community, check out IRMO’s website and services.