3.8m EU migrants are allowed to stay in UK
NEARLY four million EU migrants will be allowed to live permanently in Britain after Brexit – and bring their families with them.
They will be given the automatic right to settle here as long as they pay £65 – about £10 less than the minimum cost of a UK passport.
Any EU migrant who has lived in Britain lawfully for at least five years will be granted this ‘settled status’, giving them full access to schools, hospitals, pensions and benefits. Applicants will face only three questions: to prove their ID, whether they have criminal convictions and whether they live in the UK.
However, international criminal record checks will not be routinely carried out, meaning violent criminals could get the right to live here. Even if an EU citizen has a criminal record in Britain, they might not be considered for deportation.
Officials said that if an offence such as rape had been committed many years ago, it might not meet the threshold to deport someone. Successful applicants will also get the right to bring their parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, children and partners to join them – even if they are not EU nationals.
Officials revealed they were planning for 3.8 million applications – about 600,000 more than previously expected. It is because officials do not know exactly how many EU migrants are living here.
Applicants’ names will be screened against UK police and security databases, unless there is ‘good cause’ to suspect a person has a hidden criminal history abroad. It raises the prospect that dangerous EU criminals – including killers, rapists and drug lords – will not be identified when they apply for the right to live here permanently.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid yesterday unveiled details of the scheme, which will run for those EU citizens who want to stay in Britain after the Brexit transition period ends in December 2020.
He said he wanted to make the system as ‘simple’ as possible. Ministers say the application process, which will operate online, will be as easy as renewing a driving licence.
Mr Javid said the Government’s ‘default’ position would be to grant settled status and there would have to be ‘a very good reason why you are not going to get that’.
But the generous regime appears to be at odds with the lack of information from Brussels on the arrangements for British citizens who want to remain in the EU after the transition period.
Tory MP Philip Davies expressed concern about the ‘lax’ checks on criminal databases, adding: ‘Migrants who commit crimes here should be deported unless there are extenuating circumstances. The Government seems to be taking the view that unless it is a very serious crime, they are OK to stay, which is the wrong way round.’
The application scheme is set to be trialled within weeks before it opens ‘fully’ on March 30 next year – the day after Britain officially departs the bloc. The final deadline for applications is the end of June 2021.
Lord Green of Deddington, of the MigrationWatch think-tank, said: ‘The effect of these arrangements is that EU citizens who arrive during the transition period will have the right to stay on for five years. They would then acquire rights to bring in spouses, parents and grandparents that were greater than those of British citizens.’
The £170million scheme will be compulsory for all EU citizens living in the UK.
Mr Javid said decisions would be granted ‘very quickly’, with most applications turned around within two weeks.