the3million Profile picture
Mar 9 9 tweets 6 min read
The government refused yet again to #FixTheDigitalStatus yesterday in the House of Lords, causing needless suffering to the most vulnerable. Ignoring countless calls to provide physical proof to EU citizens is wrong. We need to see meaningful engagement now.
Peers debated #Amendment79 of the #NationalityAndBordersBill to give physical proof of immigration status. Unfortunately there were not enough votes in support at the late hour it was debated. This problem isn't going away and we need the govt to address it.
Thank you to all of you who have raised your voices and demanded for the government to #FixTheDigitalStatus by writing to peers. Your stories have been heard loud and clear.
Our proposal for a solution using QR codes has been rejected without any acknowledgement of the problem. This simply isn't good enough.

The govt response: bit.ly/3MABZvZ and our rebuttal: bit.ly/3HY5XXf
“We had the Windrush disaster because people got nothing in writing. That was a shameful episode; many people suffered badly and we are now paying large sums of compensation.”

As Lord Sandhurst said, this govt needs to learn from past mistakes.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick explained that @LordsEUCom had no hesitation in unanimously - across all parties - recommending physical proof of status when they took evidence for their citizens’ rights report. committees.parliament.uk/publications/6…
The U.K. Government’s response is deeply unsatisfactory. We need meaningful engagement and ask the Home Office to meet with us, as we are certain we can alleviate every concern raised.

See also our letter to the minister which was sent yesterday: the3million.org.uk/_files/ugd/cd5…
Thank you to Lord Oates @oatesjonny and all members of @UKHouseOfLords who supported this amendment, and those who spoke in favour of it. We will continue to stand up for what’s right for all EU citizens and their families.
To read the full debate, see hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2022-03-….

To watch it, watch from 23:07 at parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/c8….

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More from @the3million

Mar 10
What do delays to EU Family Permit visas mean for families? Anna*, a Belarusian citizen with #SettledStatus, cannot return home to the UK with her 1 year old British baby and husband. They are stuck in Latvia, waiting for a family travel permit, with their lives on hold.
Over Christmas, Anna went home to Belarus, for her family to meet her child for the first time. After the holidays, her British husband returned. Anna's mother applied for a Schengen visa to travel through Lithuania to the UK, to help Anna with childcare here.
When they got to the border, Anna's mother was refused. Most Belarusian travellers are temporarily banned from leaving. bbc.co.uk/news/world-eur…
Read 12 tweets
Mar 10
📢📢IMPORTANT UPDATE: The European Court of Justice agrees with our assessment of CSI.

We have long argued what the CJEU found, namely that access to the NHS fulfills the CSI requirement.
We sought to achieve this via amendments brought by @Bambos_MP, @Stuart_McDonald and @SarahLudford at all stages of the Borders bill.

The Government rejected these by merely tinkering with the existing discretionary approach. Image
Over to you Home Office.

The tentacles of CSI reach very far and deep in UK immigration law - hundreds of thousands of people and their families will have been affected by adverse decisions over the years.
Read 5 tweets
Mar 1
📢 NEW CAMPAIGN. It's time to ask the government to #FixTheDigitalStatus.

✍️ Write to members of the House of Lords, who NEXT WEEK will discuss an amendment asking for physical proof of immigration status.

Join us:
the3million.org.uk/fix-the-digita…
Lack of physical proof of our immigration status continues to be one of our most pressing issues.

The solution is simple: a system based on QR codes, similar to the Covid-19 vaccination certificates, making life easier for millions of people.
the3million.org.uk/fixing-the-dig…
From 5th April 2022, even more people will be affected, with the digital-only approach being expanded to ALL migrants in the UK.
Read 8 tweets
Feb 28
British in Europe is closing today 😲
It's with great sadness we see our most trusted partner leaving the scene but the friendships born out of years of campaigning together will remain.
Together, we made history: @the3million and @BritishInEurope started as grassroots citizens' initiatives following the 2016 referendum and provided a united front when many people were trying to divide us for quick political gains. Image
We are credited for raising #citizensrights to the top of the Brexit agenda before effectively influencing the EU institutions and the British Government to protect the rights of EU citizens in the UK and British nationals in the EU in the Withdrawal Agreement. Image
Read 5 tweets
Feb 24
Since the end of free movement on 31 December 2020, the backlog of pending EUSS applications has been stuck at over 300k cases, and the waiting times are getting longer and longer.

🧵@jablonow analyses worrying trends revealed by FOI data. Image
When free movement ended, just 6% of applications had been waiting for over three months, and their number was in the thousands. We've now seen this increase to a whopping 60%.

We are talking about more than 100k applications. Image
The backlog of applications to be considered still remains above 300k. At the end of 2020, thousands were waiting for more than 3 months for a decision. Right now, there are:
🔸 nearly 200k applications pending for over 3 months
🔸 114k applications pending for more than 6 months Image
Read 6 tweets
Feb 10
📢 Updated EU Settlement Scheme statistics are out. In January, we are seeing:

👉 the highest % to date of refused, withdrawn or invalid applications - a whopping 34%
👉 continued low processing rate; the backlog of 315,000 applications will take 24 months to clear at this rate
Only 69k applications were concluded in Jan 2022, still leaving 315k in the backlog facing insecurity, worries and threats to their ability to work, rent and live in the UK.
This backlog doesn't include Family Permit applications. We are also seeing reports of family members of EU citizens facing awful consequences because they are waiting for months on end for decisions. The most vulnerable are the most affected - eg seriously ill parents.
Read 4 tweets

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