Have you or your family received an order to leave the UK or been removed from the UK?
The EU Rights Clinic would like to hear from you!
Since the Brexit referendum, the numbers of EU citizens being detained and deported from the UK have risen significantly. This is despite statements by the UK authorities that there will be no change to the status of EU citizens living in the UK while the UK remains in the EU.
The actions of the UK authorities are in direct contravention of the right to move and reside freely under Directive 2004/38. Under the EU rules, Member States can only enforce the removal of EU citizens or their family members when they represent a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat to public policy or public security. The EU Rights Clinic is therefore alarmed to hear of new reports of EU citizens who are being told to leave the country for reasons not connected to public policy or public security.
There have been several reports in the press of EU citizens and their families being threatened with deportation, being detained and being forcibly removed from the UK. The Home Office appears to be acting without consideration of the repercussions on remaining family members, including their financial livelihood and ties to the local community.
The EU Rights Clinic considers this systematic disregard for the right to free movement and protections against expulsion to be a major breach of EU law. We intend on raising the issue with the EU institutions. We would therefore like to hear from those who have been affected by the UK’s current pattern of threatening expulsion, detention, and deportation of EU citizens and their family members irrespective of whether they represent a threat to public policy or public security.
We are calling upon EU citizens and their family members have received an order to leave the UK and those who have been deported from the UK to contact us by email and share their experiences.
Please send your stories to eurightsclinic.
We hope to use this information to formulate a complaint to the EU institutions so they can take action to bring an end to the restrictive practices of the UK authorities.
All information received will be treated confidentially and will not be divulged without your explicit consent.
The EU Rights Clinic
The EU Rights is grateful for the financial support it has received from the European Programme for Integration and Migration under its sub-fund on EU mobility.