Brexit has the potential to create real confusion amongst those who are lawfully entitled to remain in the UK after it becomes effective. Some EU citizens now living in the UK may find themselves unwittingly committing criminal offences. At present, EU citizens who have resided in the UK lawfully for five years before March 29, 2019 and continue to be resident in the UK will be entitled to “settled status” but this status is not automatically conferred and an application must be made to acquire it by March 29, 2021.
If an EU citizen is not otherwise entitled to settled status under any forthcoming withdrawal agreement, failure to make the application within the prescribed period will result in such persons becoming illegal immigrants. There are many reasons why this could unwittingly occur: misinformation about the process, a lack of education or a poor grasp of the English language and plain old human nature could all contribute to the unwitting failure of an entitled person to make an application before the cut-off period. Some persons may not have access to a computer or may have other problems that make it difficult to apply. A lack of paperwork to prove entitlement, even under a simplified application system, could also work against those entitled.
The number of people who may become unlawfully resident is probably impossible to calculate but could plausibly run into the hundreds of thousands. If the registration rate for the UK regularisation of EU citizens was recorded at an unprecedentedly high rate of 90%, that would still leave as many as 375,000 EU citizens who would become criminals the day after the deadline.
It is not possible to estimate the likely size of these groups, which will depend on individual’s decisions and the registration process itself. However, because of the large number of people who will need to apply—more than three million—even if only a few percent were affected the number could be in the tens or even the hundreds of thousands.
The Migration Observatory, University of Oxford
It is anticipated that those most likely to be affected will be Roma, the elderly and children. In addition, there are potentially large groups resident in the UK – including some foreign nationals from outside the EU but who benefit from EU law residence rights derived from an EU citizen – who appear to be excluded from the UK-EU agreement on citizens’ rights and so are not entitled to settled status such as EU citizens who are living in the UK and not working or who are not self-sufficient.
