TENS of thousands of EU nationals living in Scotland could miss the deadline for registering for the UK Government’s post-Brexit settlement scheme and many more could potentially fall victim to Home Office administrative errors of the type seen in Windrush.
Immigration lawyer Jen Ang warns that as the number of cases rises, there would be too few immigration lawyers to handle the increasing workload.
Her remarks came after official statistics indicated the majority of Scotland’s estimated 200,000 EU citizens have not yet submitted an application for the scheme, the deadline for which is December 30 next year.
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Ang told The Sunday National the Migration Observatory had estimated up to 20% of EU nationals living here would struggle with the process.
“The Home Office is known to have a very high administrative error rate, so aside from them simply making a mistake, there’s a potential for tens of thousands of people to never have applied by that deadline, simply because of the process that was imposed,” she said.
“Furthermore, there’s a potential for thousands – if not tens of thousands more – to fall foul of that administrative error of the type we have seen in Windrush.
“We’ve taken some cases and we’re concerned that there’s not enough immigration law capacity in Scotland to represent all the people that might need representation.
“All these European citizens never had to make applications before. There was no market for it, so there weren’t many immigration lawyers.”
According to the Home Office, up to £9 million has been allocated to organisations across the UK to help European citizens apply to the settlement scheme, but Ang said that was not enough.
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“The Scottish and UK governments would say they recognise there are gaps for vulnerable and at-risk people and that they are funding charities and local organisations to give that extra information and support that is required.
“I think the entire third sector and local authorities would say there’s not enough funding or planning behind that promise and that if this process doesn’t change, at the end of it we will see a worrying number of European citizens who came here. They weren’t always vulnerable, they became vulnerable when they were living among us. And then they were failed to be kept safe and protected at a political point in Brexit simply because they were Europeans.”
Ang said that if the UK leaves the EU, European citizens here under EU law would need some form of status. In a report earlier this week, she said Westminster’s Home Affairs Committee had a practical solution for all those who were here lawfully at the time of Brexit, and should not be required to register under the settlement scheme.
She said: “If a huge number of EU citizens suddenly become unlawful at a certain date I seriously doubt whether our local authorities, regional governments and the Home Office have the capacity to do what they have to do – remove them or to assist them.
“You have to remember there’s a justice issue. Somebody definitely has the right of permanent residence; you change the rules, they’re not aware of it and haven’t applied, so on what basis can you remove them?
“I think there’s a challenge under international law there – and such a move is likely to have all-party support. The positive to come from this is not to wait for regional governments to fund the work but just to organise on a local level.
“We’re training non-lawyers and volunteers, for example, to assess individual people locally and we’ll continue to support that over the next few years.”
Ang said she was in no doubt where blame for the problems lay: “New Europeans who arrive under immigration control are under the hostile environment. The problem is the process the Tory government chose requires people to affirmatively apply.
“They created this process in a way that would intentionally pose barriers to people who are at risk and to people who have poor English skills, who are less literate.
“They weren’t able to distinguish lawfully between different kinds of European migrants, but they were able to distinguish by creating procedures that are prejudicial.”
Meanwhile, a Scots MP has tabled a parliamentary question following a migration case highlighted by The National.
Johnny Chui, a Hong Kong-bon British Overseas passport holder, has been refused leave to remain in Scotland because he exceeded the 540 days he is allowed to leave the UK within 10 years, despite two of the trips being due to family bereavements – the deaths of his grandfather and his father.
Martyn Day, the SNP MP for Linlithgow and East Falkirk, is asking the Home Secretary how many British National (Overseas) citizens have been refused leave to remain from 2010 to now and how many of the refusals were due to applicants exceeding the 540-day rule.
Day, who co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Visas and Immigration, said: “Through both in my constituency casework and work with the APPG, I never cease to be amazed at how hostile and unfit for purpose the UK immigration system is.
“We really need control over our immigration policy to be devolved to Scotland.”
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