Many EU Citizens Given Pre-Settled Status

A backlog has been created of EU citizens who are trying to achieve settled status, though reasons are unclear.

A news article in The Guardian newspaper revealed that the proportion of people being awarded the more precarious pre-settled status, as opposed to settled-status, has leapt from 32 or 33 per cent in previous months to 44 per cent.

This means that there is now a backlog of over half a million EU citizens who have applied for settled status who haven’t yet received it.

The numbers of EU citizens applying for settled status had risen over recent months, which charities representing EU citizens living in the United Kingdom had welcomed.

Elena Remigi, the founder and director of the In Limbo project, which represents EU citizens told The Guardian: “The statistics show a growing number of people applying for the settlement scheme, but we’ve also noticed an equally growing number of people waiting for several weeks, if not months, before receiving a reply.”

Older people were struggling more with the scheme and being asked to provide further evidence and then receiving pre- rather than full settled-status which they had applied for.

The Home Office has not provided an explanation for why the delays are increasing and more people are experiencing delays. Nicolas Hatton, a co-founder of the EU citizens’ campaign group the3million suggested that the Home Office could have processed easier applications at the beginning, meaning more difficult applications were being processed now which could explain the delay.

The fact there are no accurate up to date figures representing the number of European individuals and families here is contributing the problem of discerning how big the issue is.

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