,
8 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
Ok. Too infuriated to leave it here. Let's talk about how @sajidjavid and his rotten department are about to ruin Rory, Anna, and their daughters' lives, because the Home Office doesn't understand its own laws, and even though it agrees they're all allowed to enter the UK. /1
Rory and his two young daughters are British. Anna is Russian, but as the spouse of an EEA national living in Ireland she has a right to enter the UK and live here for three months, before getting a UK id, which she is also entitled to upon application /2
Anna's Irish-issued EEA card proves she has the right to enter the UK, and because of s. 21 of the 2014 Immigration Act also proves that she has a right to rent. You have a right to rent if you have a right to enter the UK under the EEA regs. She does and she can prove it. /3
So why do the estate agent and the Home Office not simply allow the family to move into the home that they have already put down a deposit for? Well because the Home Office guidance says agents can only accept a UK -issued EEA residence card. /4
The agents are understandably reluctant to rent to someone who can't show the exact documents required by Home Office guidance given the bureaucratic nightmare the Home Office has created. It still places them on tricky ground re. discrimination though . /5
The Home Office says Anna's EEA card doesn't 'confer' a right to rent. Irrelevant She has the right regardless because she is the spouse of an EEA national exercising Treaty rights. That the spokesman guidance can override a right granted by Parliament in law is scary. /6
But what the Irish EEA card does do is prove that she has a right to rent. So why won't the Home Office allow the agent to accept it as proof? Why are they asking Anna to fill out a 100 page application, pay money, and to stay homeless for the weeks it takes? Fuck knows./7
This is the same computer says no at all costs approach that led to Windrush. After Brexit this is going to happen time and time again to @the3million until we repeal the hostile environment. Your immigration status shouldn't be your landlord's problem./end
