Thread by @ZoeJardiniere

Today is deadline day for EU citizens to apply to stay in their homes in the UK.
An incredible self-inflicted disaster. Starting tomorrow & over the next years, tens or even hundreds of thousands more people are going to lose rights & be forced into the hands of criminals.

Those people's landlords, employers and GPs are going to become gatekeepers for what essential services they can access.
We've already seen people wrongful turned away, there will be many, many more.

IPPR has found out over 100,000 of our EU citizen neighbours are still waiting in limbo. This settled status system was never going to work.

Add to that the Home Office's track record of incompetence and cruelty and this is a disaster waiting to happen.

https://twitter.com/IPPR/status/1409786395615432708?s=19

This didn't need to happen. It still doesn't have to.

No one should be trapped in the Hostile Environment, whether because of Brexit, or in the case of non-Europeans because of our incredibly inflexible, expensive and labyrinthine visa system. It benefits no one but criminals.

Next week Patel will bring a new Borders Bill to Parliament which will slash the rights of refugees but, despite her claims, Do absolutely nothing about the undocumented migrant population.

People become undocumented because of stupid policies like the Settled Status deadline.

There are solutions to this problem, but they would take a much braver Home Secretary willing to listen to new ideas for a new approach to our borders, and that is not Priti Patel.

In fear of the right wing press, she will forge on with her damaging agenda & outcomes be damned.

We need access to asylum at our externalised border in France, tear up juxtaposed controls & give undocumented migrants for whom the UK is home a realistic route to regularisation.

jcwi.org.uk/we-are-here-ro…

Just like Theresa May was warned the Hostile Environment was causing racist discrimination that would impact the Windrush generation, we are warning MPs now that Patel's Bill will only make things worse.

This Bill could be an opportunity to make the changes that protect people.

But we need some bravery and leadership from parliamentarians and we desperately need them to step up and support an approach that deals in evidence, not in how many approving Telegraph or Mail headlines they can get for their "toughness".

EU citizens, every one, deserve the right to carry on their lives without disruption.

Refugees deserve a functioning protection system accessible to all who need it.

We all deserve an end to this groundhog day of rehashed, hostile policies. We need to move on to better things.

The people saying that EU folks "should have applied by now" are the same as those who say asylum seekers "should" apply somewhere else.
I choose to live in the real world and take responsibility. You carry on about what you reckon people "should" do and see what it gets you.