He said: \u2018As we enter a post-Brexit age, two things must be made clear.<\/p>\n
\u2018The first is that Leave doesn\u2019t mean EU citizens and their family members in the UK must leave. Given that all sides agree that EU citizens and their families living in the UK must be able to stay if they wish, it is possible and honourable, as well as administratively simpler, to end the uncertainty for the EU citizen clients of the Kent Law Clinic as to their future status.<\/p>\n
\u2018The EUSS is not perfect but it has one great advantage for EU citizens and their family members: the grant of a secure status, entitling full access to the same welfare benefits for those in need of assistance as British citizens. For 15 years Kent Law Clinic has taken cases on behalf of EU citizens wrongly refused social assistance and left destitute by the UK\u2019s \u201cright to reside\u201d test for claiming means tested benefits.\u2018Why subject resident EU citizens to a test that is legally complex, administratively slow, and expensive and produces only misery, endless appeals and overturned decisions?<\/p>\n
\u2018Put positively, let\u2019s celebrate the fact the EUSS is more generous than the structures of EU free movement law. Kent Law Clinic has seen clients struggle with refusals under the \u2018right to reside\u2019 test, or wait months for a grant of permanent residency after submitting vast amounts of documentation. For claiming subsistence benefits and social assistance, the grant of positive status is transformative.<\/p>\n
\u2018The EUSS could exemplify a Home Office scheme working for both the applicants and the state.<\/p>\n
\u2018The second point follows on from the first. It ill befits practitioners, such as myself, to conjure up and dwell publically on \u2018horror stories\u2019 about potential difficulties, intrusions, short-comings and nightmares of making an application under the EUSS. The by-product is fear and avoidance.\u2018Having been the recipients of DWP \u201cYou have no right to reside\u201d decisions, many resident EU citizens have understandable trust issues. People who need to apply are avoiding doing so, resulting with them potentially falling into a precarious state; in the UK but not belonging to society.<\/p>\n
\u2018Accordingly, the Government could and should take the following steps:<\/p>\n
Graham Tegg is Director of Kent Law Clinic. He specialises in social security and welfare law, EU free movement law and public law. His scholarly interest is in citizenship and sovereignty but most particularly in poverty.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"