Thread by @the3million

📢 BREAKING: The Home Office announce changes affecting 1.9m EU citizens* with EU Settlement Scheme pre-settled status:
🔸Expiry dates of status will not be visible to employers, landlords and other checkers
🔸Pre-settled status extensions are being increased to 5 years

🔸No further checks are required to be done by landlords or employers once someone is in a job or tenancy

This is potentially great news for people with pre-settled status. We've been asking for expiry dates to be removed since the Home Office announced their intensions to extend everyone's status. We were told it couldn't be done. We're glad a solution has been found.

We've already seen people offered temporary contracts, just because their status was seen as due to expire. In practice, their status was going to be extended. Removing expiry dates solves this one part of the problem.

We have an outstanding question for the Home Office, as it is not clear whether pre-settled status holders would continue to be able to prove their status through generating sharecodes, or whether the Employer/Landlord checking services need to be used.

We also need to know when these changes will start being implemented.

Furthermore, we need to take this good news with a pinch of salt. At the same time as these measures are put in place, the Home Office has said they will start looking at curtailment of pre-settled status.

This will involve case workers proactively asking people with pre-settled status to prove they have been living in the UK for 5 years. If EU citizens don’t provide the necessary evidence within the deadline imposed by the Home Office, they will be left undocumented.

There are many vulnerable people who don't have enough evidence of living in the UK: stay at home mums, people with informal rental agreements, people with cash in hand jobs, people from the Roma community, and many others.

Many were helped by NGOs to get pre-settled status, so their contact details are not even associated with their digital immigration status.

As is happening with the expansion of eVisas, we are worried advisers will receive requests on behalf of clients, and will not always be able to notify the person whose status is at risk. inews.co.uk/news/home-offi…

Thank you to everyone who continues to support us, to scrutinise the implementation of the EU Settlement Scheme, ask for substantive policy change and make it happen! the3million.org.uk/donate

*We use EU citizens as shorthand for EU, EEA and Swiss citizens who were resident in the UK before 31 December 2020, and their family members (of any nationality) with derived rights.