The 46-year-old, who arrived in Britain as an 11-month-old baby and has never left the country, has been trying to secure EU settled status since her employers sacked her last June as they forced post-Brexit. right to work regulations. Her uncertain immigration status left her unable to claim unemployment benefits, pushing her into debt. As the family’s main breadwinner, her inability to work has left her struggling to support her two teenage children and forced her to rely on handouts from her mother-in-law’s pension. “It was really stressful,” said the woman, who asked not to be named. “I don’t sleep well because I worry about money. There is a petrol bill this week for £160. There isn’t always enough food for everyone.” Her husband is British, as are her two children. “I don’t think I should have to go through all this. I went to school here, I’ve been working in this country since I was 18, there’s 27 years of tax payments they could check.” Her case was highlighted by the Guardian last summer, but despite the Home Office saying her rights should be protected while her claim is being considered, she has been unable to persuade her employers to rehire her. Her case was in a Home Office backlog of around 400,000 pending applications for EU resident status and she did not receive a formal response to her application until March, when she was eight months out of work. She was told that her application could not be accepted without an ID form. He has never traveled abroad and never needed a passport. she was told that her driver’s license and Spanish birth certificate were not sufficient proof of identity. Born in Spain to a Spanish father and Italian mother, she has contacted the two embassies in the UK for help. The Italian embassy told her she would have to apply for nationality by descent, which could take up to 10 years. She said the Spanish consulate told her she should have claimed Spanish citizenship before she turned 18. Officials asked for her 94-year-old father’s Spanish passport, but she hasn’t seen him since the 1980s and doesn’t know where he lives or even if he is still alive. She does not speak Spanish and has been confused by the process of applying to become a Spanish national resident in the UK, which requires her to fill out forms in Spanish. She is now being helped by a Spanish-speaking worker at the employment charity Work Rights Centre. A Home Office spokesman said: “The EU Settlement Scheme has been a resounding success, with more than 5.9 million status grants. EU citizens whose identity has not been verified but who applied by the deadline of 30 June 2021 are protected and we have officers working closely with those who have not resolved their status.” But the woman said she had not received enough support. “I was waiting for the Home Office to get in touch and say, ‘Let’s sort this out and get back to work.’ I didn’t think I’d still be going through it a year later. I am angry, there were many tears. I can’t support my family,” he said. EU citizens’ rights campaigners say her case is not unique and say a large number of people still waiting in the backlog, now around 225,000, have similarly complex applications and have been pushed into financial hardship. difficulties while awaiting a decision. Her predicament recalls the challenges faced by thousands of people from the Windrush generation who struggled to convince the Home Office that they were in the UK legally, despite having lived here for 40 or 50 years. The Home Office has introduced a “comprehensive improvement plan” in response to the Windrush scandal, promising greater compassion, a complete cultural change and pledging to “see the face” behind every immigration application. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol, Chief Executive of the Center for Employment Rights, said: “I am extremely concerned for the thousands of EU citizens who are still waiting for an outcome of their EUSS applications. The Home Office must speed up these decisions and give people with complex applications a real chance to secure their status, not present them with bureaucratic hurdles that hold them back for months.” Luke Piper, head of policy at the3million, a grassroots EU citizens’ organization in the UK, said: “It’s a shame that people are being treated so unfairly by the Home Office. It is clear that someone who has lived legally in the UK since they were a baby should be able to carry on with their lives as normal after Brexit. Safeguards are failing too many people, and jobs and rental opportunities are being lost, journeys are crowded and EU citizens are suffering.” The Spanish embassy in London said it was unable to comment. “England is the only country I’ve ever known,” added the woman. “This is my home. I don’t know what else I have to do to prove it.”
