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Comment by DangerousPie | Hacker News Reader

FYI, The Independent has a reputation for writing ridiculous clickbait articles. When you look into the details things almost always turn out to be much less dramatic than the article made it sound.

See here for a response to this article: https://twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1163335442542059520

> As has been previously been made clear, in the event of no deal, EU citizens and their family members already resident in the UK by 31 October 2019 will be welcome to stay and we want them to do so. They are part of our community, and part of our country and we welcome the contribution that they make. If there is no deal, they will have until 31 December 2020 to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme to protect their status.

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That's a very misleading quote.

The new Home Secretary wants to institute a different regime from day one of no deal, which deviates from original plans and creates a whole range of issues for EU nationals with and without settled status who are resident.

While it is aimed at voters to show that they'll be treating new arrivals differently, the systems and laws and all of the bodies that deal with EU nationals are not equipped to differentiate between existing residents and new arrivals.

Only about a third of EU nationals have applied for settled status and this new messaging from the incoming Home Secretary is saying the hostile environment measures must be eagerly applied to all EU nationals without it. Employers, landlords, banks, health service providers and border officials all have the burden to verify a person's legal status and the majority of EU nationals will be unable to demonstrate their status from day one. Their status furthermore isn't protected by primary legislation and for most people only amounts to being in a digital system that must be checked online.

Most parties involved in having to check resident's status is not trained in doing that, in so far it is even practicable from day one of no deal. And it most certainly will create discrimination, making it more likely that those that have a harder time demonstrating their rights will be unfairly rejected or skipped over, or be faced with additional burdens to prove status.

The real world consequences for people affected could be not finding a place to rent, being evicted, losing a bank account or being unable to open one, being denied health services or being asked to pay for services that should be free, being denied a job, being let go, or simply being skipped over by employers. This all can happen to people who have been in the UK for decades but are unable to easily demonstrate their status. This is not hypothetical stuff, this already happens but the occurrence would jump up by an order of magnitude as the result of the course taken here.

> The real world consequences for people affected could be not finding a place to rent, being evicted, losing a bank account or being unable to open one, being denied health services or being asked to pay for services that should be free, being denied a job, being let go, or simply being skipped over by employers. This all can happen to people who have been in the UK for decades but are unable to easily demonstrate their status. This is not hypothetical stuff, this already happens but the occurrence would jump up by an order of magnitude as the result of the course taken here.

Yup. This is setting up for Windrush fiasco all over again, just on a much larger scale.

This new messaging isn't saying that the hostile environment measures must be applied to all EU nationals - you're right that would be a much bigger deal, but there's nothing in the article saying that would happen. The existing plan is that employers, landlords and other third parties won't be asked to check the status of EU citizens until the end of 2020, and this doesn't change that - it just changes restrictions at the borders themselves. If there's ever an indication that will change you won't have to read between the lines to spot it because it'll be right there in the headlines.

Patel's stated intentions imply the extension of all of the hostile environment measures. She wants to end freedom of movement instantly, even though it had been presumed to be effectively applied for an interim period even with no deal and no transition. She wants to explicitly kill the notion of a grace period, which had been presumed to apply before.

The reporting is light on details, because the 'how' has not been drawn up yet. What has been newly decided is to immediately kill freedom of movement in practice. And the UK does most of its border controls behind the border, by making landlords, banks, hospitals and doctors do checks. Even if what Patel means to implement is purely what border officials at airports do to check people's status as they come in (and I very much doubt this is all she intends), it reinforces the message to employers, health service providers, banks and landlords that EU nationals are a higher liability if they turn out not to have the required status. The Govt may very well even advise landlords for instance that they won't hold them to account with the usual criminal penalties for accidentally renting to a EU national without settled status or other valid migration status, many landlords will simply eschew EU nationals going forward because it's safer. Messaging like this underlines that a EU ID is no longer a sufficient signal that a person is in all likelihood a legal resident and that a tough line is meant to be taken against EU nationals.

If only a third a third of the EU nationals applied it means they didn’t want to apply in the first place.

The whole process take about 15 minutes, especially if you have an social insurance number.

I applied and I was denied (even though I have almost ten year of continuous employment). After a few weeks they came back to me saying they made a mistake.

My wife, which has been in the country for the same time but has not been under continuous employment will have a much harder time proving residence status and will require going though ton of documentation.

The 15 minutes are a fiction.

Nobody should be pleased about applying in the first place, as it formalises a lesser status than people had previously.

And it may take 15 minutes if you have had continuous employment or have been drawing benefits with no gaps at all for five years AND they are able to verify that in an automated way. Hundreds of thousands will be spending much more time on their application. And although the overall process is pretty lenient and fairly well done, many people are going to have trouble with it.

If you fall under a less certain scenario, you may be reluctant to apply at all, because it doesn't guarantee you'll get approved and the consequences of not being approved are daunting.

Under no deal, failure to be accepted for settled status equates to being officially recognised as a resident with no workable legal status and that is a very, very bad place to be in. And if you don't apply by the end of 2020, you lose out altogether under current plans. Note that with 3 million EU citizens, plenty of people are simply not even aware of the consequences or the need to apply in the first place.

People have until end of 2020 to apply. Considering the mess and flip-flopping it is reasonable not to rush.

Or they don't intend to stay. I wonder what the consequences of a mass exodus would be.

Well, if the seas part and they walk across the channel then I'd say people would start taking note. But humour aside, those leaving have already done so and https://fullfact.org/immigration/eu-citizens-brexodus/

But humour aside, those leaving have already done so

It wasn't very funny and we don't really know what will happen.

They won't be able to leave because of the chaos on the EU/UK border after wild Brexit. Problem solved.

No, actually it's as big or bigger than the article suggests.

There is no longer the 2-year transition period in which EU workers can work in the UK, and UK workers work in the EU.

This means that existing working arrangements will be severely disrupted. Each week, there are hundreds of thousands of people crossing the border, a significant proportion of them for work, including providing on-site support services, training, professional engagements or just cross-channel commuting.

That 2-year transition period only applies in case of Brexit according to the negotiated deal.

In the absence of a deal it was always made clear that freedom of movement would end immediately or as soon as practical.

See [1] (published in January) about immigration in case of no deal Brexit.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eu-immigration-af...

That links to https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eu-immigration-af... which also says:

> 5. Once free movement has ended from 31 October 2019(1), EU citizens and their family members arriving in the UK will be admitted under UK immigration rules and will require permission (leave to enter or remain). Unlike EU free movement, this will not be a rights-based system so those who do not hold valid immigration permission to be in the UK will be here unlawfully and may be liable to enforcement action. This is a crucial difference between UK immigration law and EU free movement law, which does not require permission from the Home Office for a person to be here lawfully.

So, what happens to an EU national who is ordinarily resident in the UK but has left briefly and is now returning to the UK? What exactly happens at the border? Which documents do they present to guarantee re-entry?

(You quote below the statement that they will be able to show an EU passport, but of course that does not constitute "valid immigration permission to be in the UK")

Read the 4th point fully.

> The information below is concerned with those EU citizens who arrive in the UK after exit, not those residing here before the UK withdraws from the EU.

And my question is: at the border, which document does an EU citizen present to distinguish between those two cases?

None, that's why this whole thing is a farce. Once you register for the Settlement Scheme you do get an email confirming that you did, that's all. But you don't legally have to apply for it until next year anyway, so you might have the full legal right to reside in the UK and not have any document to prove it.

A tiny minority of those that fall under the settled status scheme (non-EU family members of EU citizens) may possess a physical biometric card. The overwhelming majority have no document to present.

From https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families

"If your application is successful, a letter will be emailed to you confirming your settled or pre-settled status. The letter you get from the Home Office which confirms your status will include a link to an online service. You can use this service to view and prove your status."

Let me get this straight, your ability to re-enter the UK to be with your family depends on a URL printed on a piece of paper?

No, a URL in an emailed letter.

This is more about proving your status to employers and such. Border agents will, presumably, be able to see your status electronically through their own system.

Who says EU citizens will need a visa to enter the country?

EU citizens will almost certainly not need a visa to visit the UK, no matter what the final circumstances of Brexit.

However, like other countries that do not need a visa to visit the UK, border agents could still refuse entry if they believe (for example) you intend to seek work rather than just visit.

I.e. in practice there won't be any issue until they have proper procedures and documentation in place.

Are you absolutely bet-your-job sure about that? Because EU nationals will have to be.

There is no need to create panic.

They said EU citizens in the UK are welcome to stay and EU tourists will be welcome without visas, which is common sense, really.

Therefore I don't see the need to scare everyone. There are not going to start denying entry to EU citizens.

And I write this as an EU citizen in the UK.

I am glad that you, as an EU citizen in the UK, are not panicked.

However, in many cases the panic already exists, in no small part because the people running the UK refuse to be held to their own previous promises, even when it comes to what they want from Brexit.

Have they suggested that EU citizens would need a visa to enter the UK?

People would have a permanent residence certificate will have something to show.

Settlement Scheme is a permanent residence certificate(at least the email I got from the Home Office says so) and yet no certificate can actually be obtained from the home office for this. The border agent can go on gov.uk website and check I guess?

I am talking about the existing permanent resident status under EU law.

But the important point is the question I asked: have they suggested that a visa will be required to enter the country?

My understanding is that visa-free travel will continue so it should not really matter whether you can prove status.

>>But the important point is the question I asked: have they suggested that a visa will be required to enter the country?

They haven't. They are just saying that the free movement will end, meaning that as an EU citizen you don't have the automatic right to enter the UK....but no alternative was offered. EU citizens are inelligable for all UK visas right now anyway, because they are specifically worded in such a way and would need to be changed.

>>I am talking about the existing permanent resident status under EU law.

And this might be strange to some, but you can be totally elligable for the full settled status but not for the permanent residence card(I was in this exact situation - I have lived in the UK for 8 years, but the first 4 "don't count" towards the permanent residence status because I was a student without private health insurance(which was only added as a requirement after I started my studies) - but I still got the full Settled Status because that doesn't care why you were here, only if you lived here 5 years or more).

>>My understanding is that visa-free travel will continue so it should not really matter whether you can prove status.

Which again is an issue, because it might mean that legally you don't have the right to be here at all, it's just that the border controls are letting it slide for a while until some other system is put in place. Which causes a whole set of other issues, like this time not counting towards any citizenship application(or making it impossible in the first place, since you are here "illegally"), being unable to rent a place or use the NHS.

> student without private health insurance(which was only added as a requirement after I started my studies)

As I understand it, that was always a requirement due to the wording of the treaties (or regulations / directives).

It is just that UK government hadn't previously highlighted that they viewed NHS entitlement as not counting as "medical insurance".

There is supposed to be an ongoing dispute with the Commission over this point.

See here and links from it: https://www.freemovement.org.uk/comprehensive-sickness-insur...

"free movement" means something much deeper than visa-free travel.

Anyway, I think this is a storm in a teacup. In the circumstances EU citizens woild just be waved in as they are now until the dust settles and proper procedures are in place.

That wouldn't mean EU citizens would be here illegally either.

>>That wouldn't mean EU citizens would be here illegally either.

I have exactly ZERO trust that this is the interpretation that the government will take.

When I first tried applying for the permanent residence card, I was told that according to the home office

1) As an EU citizen you need to be exercising your "EU free movement rights" to be in the UK legally

2) If you are a student without private health insurance, you are not exercising your "EU free movement rights"

3) I spoke with multiple Home Office agents, some saying that it means that a student without private health insurance is here illegaly, others saying that no, an EU student without private health insurance is here legally, they are "just not exercising their EU free movement rights". No, they weren't able to explain what exactly they mean by that or which legislation says so.

This strikes me as the exact same situation. No, you don't have the right to be here, but at the same time, you do, but no, we can't point you to any law that would say so.

That's a huge long-running mess. The EU rules on free movement are written around the assumption that health care is insurance-based, and contain a rule stating that people must either be employed or have "comprehensive sickness insurance" in order to exercise that right for more then three months. This clashes badly with the UK's unique setup of healthcare for all that's free at the point of use. Other EU countries with "universal healthcare" are set up as state-run insurance schemes where you must either be employed or claiming one of a specific set of benefits to have healthcare, and this works fine with the EU rules - they can just charge an insurance fee to students from other EU states. Non-EU nationals residing in the UK pay a similar surcharge to fund their use of the NHS, but EU nationals can't be charged that because it technically isn't insurance. The European Commission's interpretation of the rules is that the NHS counts as comprehensive sickness insurance and every EU national who moves here should be able to get free healthcare forever even if they don't pay a penny; this would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that we're basically the only EU state that has to do this!

The right to permanent residence after five years is then restricted to "Union citizens and their family members who have resided in the host Member State in compliance with the conditions laid down in this Directive during a continuous period of five years". So it depends heavily on how those conditions are interpreted.

It is not unique. Italy (another large EU founding state) has pretty much exactly the same setup as UK.

edit: the Italian SSN (Servizio Sanitario Nazionale) was basically modeled on the NHS.

It is perfectly legal to enter the country and reside here as student.

But if you do not have health insurance this does not count towards gaining permanent residence (and thus citizenship thereafter).

If you need legal advice you should talk to a solicitor specialised in immigration law, not to a random person in a call centre.

I did actually, and the immigration lawyer I spoke to said that the home office is wrong about this, because the EU doesn't specify any such requirement - just that if you lived in a member country for 5 years you automatically get the right to permanent residence there. That's it. There are no further conditions attached. So UK breaks this law by requiring anything extra, but her advice was that yes, it is entirely possible to take the Home Office to court over this and win, it's just going to take a lot of time and money(and I had neither).

And besides, it's just not some random people in the call centre - Home Office's own website said that you only reside in the UK legally if you are exercising your free movement rights - I mean, that clearly reads to me as "if you don't, you are here illegally". It can't work both ways.

> just that if you lived in a member country for 5 years you automatically get the right to permanent residence there

No, you need to meet additional criteria. This is explicit in EU law [1] (and very well covered online), so I'm puzzled as to the advice you received.

Since you were looking for a legal references regarding students, note that [1] is also explicit that students should have "comprehensive sickness insurance cover" (the dispute here is whether access to NHS qualifies. UK government argues that it does not).

[1] Article 7 of https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...

EU settlement scheme says that you need to present the document you used to obtain the residence through the settlement scheme.

School, doctor, home, job, taxes etc. that should leave a "paper" trail that can be looked up by officials.

There is no system for doing this, and I would not expect passport officials to be able to look up tax and medical records at the point of entry!

> I would not expect passport officials to be able to look up tax and medical records at the point of entry

Then you’ll be clearly surprised if you knew what all they can access crossing the border.

Do you have a citation for the claim that border agents can access tax or medical records?

Apologies for the slow response, was trying to find a source, but haven’t found one.

My comment was based on personal experience of going through secondary inspection with border agents in various countries. All of the FVEY countries share a frightening amount of information with each other’s border agents. I’m not specifically claiming they have medical records, but literally anything that is in a government database (I’m not being hyperbolic there, just prefer not to be specific as to what I’ve been shown on their screen that I felt they had no right to know) is accessible to them if the agent wants and knows how.

Seconding the request for info about this.

Considering the Windrush scandal the UK doesn't exactly have the best track record with dealing with immigration issues.

The authorities might - either conveniently or due to incompetence - lose relevant documents in the future, at which point you might not be able to prove anymore that you've already had a leave to stay in the UK before 31 October 2019.

This also might be used as leverage in upcoming negotiations with the EU.

Exactly. And if you ever plan for applying for citizenship in the future this brief period of legal limbo might stop you from getting it.

> FYI, The Independent has a reputation for writing ridiculous clickbait articles. When you look into the details things almost always turn out to be much less dramatic than the article made it sound.

While more reputable news sources have not yet picked up this story, if it is indeed true, there is a very marked difference between what is claimed in the article and what has been said by the government to date. The article claims that the Home Secretary will attempt to enact secondary legislation to end freedom of movement, while the gov.uk link in your tweet claims that it will be done ASAP through primary legislation.

If true this is an important difference as we likely won't know until close to the October 31st deadline whether no deal is actually going to happen (though it is clearly more of a risk now than ever), and it implies that the government plan not to wait until they achieve a majority in parliament for the bill to abolish freedom of movement, but instead plan to abolish it any way they can.

Not sure how exactly that gov.uk link is related to this as the article tells about a new plan so you should really dispute the article by providing evidence that the new home secretary doesn't want to impose anything different.

The whole point of this article is that your current, new, Home Secretary wants to change that policy.

But what about re-entry when coming back from abroad?

I'm in germany and I have a friend who lives here with his family, but they are still british citizens. So, from our side of the channel: Pretty much everyone in their situation has been contacted by the german government - temporary allowances of residences are prepared for this situation for everyone in their families. All they have to do after an exit is to go to their local citizens bureau in order to sign and collect the papers. After that, they are fine until a more permanent solution is found.

However, to answer your question: Coming back from abroad is a complicated thing, even from France inside the EU. Technically, after a hard brexit and without these temporary papers, they are citizens of a foreign nation and the german state has no diplomatic relationship with this state. As such, they could get detained or denied entry if they run into some kind of border control. As such, it is recommended to not leave the country while this is going on. This had tossed quite the wrench into their vacation plans.

You'll need to have applied for settled/pre-settled status, I'd imagine, unless an Irish citizen. And then ask the immigration officer to check gov.uk for you, because there's no actual legal paper or ID issued that you can carry with you.

> 10. Until 31 December 2020, EU citizens will be able to enter the UK by showing either a valid national identity card or a passport.

This gets increasing complicated with third-country dependants of EU citizens thrown into the mix. There are significant numbers of people in this situation living in the UK or entering on a regular basis. Brexit is a complete omnishambles and indicative of wider problems in British media and political discourse.

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