Home Office tells EU citizens their UK status was an error. Will it back down?

What happened

At least 100 EU citizens have received Home Office letters saying their pre-settled status was granted in error. Freedom of information disclosures to the3million show 95 people were contacted in March alone, and the department has declined to give a full figure.

People who get the letter have 14 calendar days to reply. They must send evidence that they were eligible when they first applied. The letters say their pre-settled status, the temporary right to stay given under the EU Settlement Scheme after Brexit, was granted in error. Campaigners believe the true number of letters runs into the hundreds or more.

One person who got a letter is an NHS worker with Portuguese citizenship through her father. She was told she had not shown she was a relevant EEA citizen, meaning from the European Economic Area, before the cut-off of 31 December 2020. The reason given was that she held no Portuguese passport when she first applied.

The Home Office reply, as reported, is that people keep their status until it runs out and can apply through other immigration routes. They get a right to appeal only if a new application is refused.

The letters are part of a wider tightening. Since 9 April the Home Office has used an automatic process to remove pre-settled status from people it judges no longer live in the UK.

The Independent Monitoring Authority (IMA), which watches over EU citizens’ rights in the UK, accepts that removal can be lawful under the Withdrawal Agreement, the Brexit treaty. It has raised concerns about whether removals are fair and consistent. The campaign group the3million argues that taking away status granted in good faith breaks the agreement outright.

One caution: as of 3 August only one national outlet has reported the story. Other support here rests on the IMA, GOV.UK policy papers and the3million’s published cases.

Sources: The Guardian, GOV.UK, IMA, the3million

The Pattern

Three times since 2014 the Home Office has told large numbers of people that their immigration status rested on an error. What happened next depended mostly on whether the department kept defending its first decision, and less on how many people were hit.

The Read

History says the answer turns on whether the Home Office keeps defending the letters. Right now it does. The IMA calls removal lawful in principle, and Parliament is on its summer break. So the pressure that forced the same-day climbdown in 2017 is missing, and our market on a withdrawal or apology stands at 22%. The Commons market is closer to a coin toss. MPs return in early September, the3million is organising affected cases, and any letter that echoes the Windrush wording is an easy urgent question, a way for opposition MPs to force a minister to answer in the Commons.

The weak point is coverage. Only one national outlet has the story so far. If wider coverage does not come, interest fades over the summer and both markets end NO with the letters still standing.

Three things could move the first number: a formal IMA inquiry, a legal challenge under the Withdrawal Agreement, or one sympathetic case taking over the news for days. That last one is how Windrush grew.