Overnight on 1 July 2021, tens of thousands of people lost their right to be in the UK lawfully. Today we’ve published our new report exploring what’s happened in the weeks since the 30th June EU Settlement Scheme deadline and who in the North West has been left behind.
The Government has been repeatedly warned that vulnerable people would be left behind by the EU Settlement Scheme deadline on 30 June 2021. They failed to listen. Since the deadline we’ve heard every day from people in communities across the North West in panic and desperation.
This includes:
- a 92 year old woman from Italy who was cheering on England in the Euro 2020 finals. She missed the deadline because she assumed it didn’t apply to people like her, who had been in the UK for decades
- a man who lost his job because of confusion with his employer over his rights in a digitial system with no physical proof of status
- vulnerable families fleeing violence and abuse who lost their documents and missed the deadline
- children coming into care after the deadline where it was unclear whether applied for them before the deadline
- young people experiencing homelessness, including one who missed the deadline waiting to renew a passport after Covid delays
These are our friends, our neighbours, parents at our schools, our family members. They’re experiencing the lived horrors of the hostile environment. The EU Settlement Scheme has failed them.
The deadline may have passed, but it’s not too late for the Government to protect vulnerable people in our communities. Along with other organisations including the3million and the Work Rights Centre, we are calling on the Government to take every opportunity to keep people lawfully in the UK and to make sure they don’t suffer the same devastating injustices as the Windrush generation.