Westminster Mass Lobby to Mark EU-UK Summit
On May 19th, during the EU-UK Summit, EU citizens gathered in Westminster to ask for rights to be respected and the government to fix digital status.
With the UK looking towards EU to hold closer strategic and economic relations, we came together to remind the UK parliament of issues that are currently destroying the lives of EU citizens in UK.
Currently, over 5m EU citizens in the UK have to rely on eVisas - the digital-only immigration system that is not fit for purpose.
Over 76,000 people have been reportedly affected by errors on Home Office databases, losing job opportunities, being turned down for tenancies and facing issues travelling back to the UK.
We have put together a proposal of 10 Urgent Fixes to the system, and we used the 19th of May to tell MPs directly about the issues facing EU citizens.
Before the start of the EU Summit, members of the3million EU Citizens' Network gathered outside of Lancaster House and proclaimed to all arriving EU and UK parliamentary members that This is Our Home!
With this clear message, we all walked to Westminster to our mass lobby in Westminster central hall to call on MPs to talk to us about digital status issues affecting EU Citizens.
The four key issues with the eVisa system are:
- No individually-held proof: Status holders are not given a digital document they can save, print, or present when requested. Instead, they must use a fragmented View & Prove process which is not fit for purpose.
- Accessibility failures: In areas with poor connectivity or no digital access, status becomes unreachable. This often happens at the border.
- Data integrity concerns: There are frequent problems with the Home Office databases. Entangled records display the wrong biodata, someone else’s photograph, or the wrong status details - something most EU citizens experienced in March when their UKVI account showed the wrong nationality.
- Significant impact: When that happens, people are left unable to take up offers of work, are refused the right to rent, cannot access education and healthcare due to the inability to prove their status - paralleling the failures seen in the Windrush scandal. At the point of travel, people are refused boarding and are prevented from coming home to the UK.
Lina is Swedish and has been living in the UK since 2014. She has pre-settled status which was due to be extended. Instead, it was marked incorrectly as “expired” on her UKVI account.
She called the UKVI Resolution Centre who confirmed this was a technical error, but didn't fix the problem.
She received a letter from the NHS telling her she’s no longer eligible for free healthcare in the UK and she was classed as a visitor. She has an autoimmune disease and it would be catastrophic impact to not have access to treatment.
Her tenancy is up for renewal as well, so she's afraid she'll be made homeless. The stress of seeing she's got no status anymore has led to flare-ups of her health conditions.
Using the green slip system in place, EU citizens were able to call on their MP or their assistant to meet with them on the day. They used this opportunity to call on their MP to sign the Early Day Motion (EDM) tabled by Pete Wishart MP, on launching an independent review into the digital-immigration status system.
This proved to be a success, as the EDM received multiple MP signatures, and most EU citizens were able to speak with their MP or received a call back in the days following the mass lobby.
Following the mass lobby, EU Citizens gathered to have a conversation with Andrew Pakes MP. Our EU Citizens' Network member Snow Maliavskaja managed to organise a meeting with her MP Andrew Pakes and EU Citizens who came to the mass lobby. Andrew heard lived experiences from three of our EU Citizens' Network members:
- Jorge Gomez - a refugee from Nicaragua who was granted ‘leave to remain in the UK’ and given an eVisa. However, when he secured his first job, his eVisa incorrectly showed him as not having the right to work in UK. It took the Home Office more than a year to fix their error, meanwhile he was out of work and his mental health suffered.
- Heshom Adamir - a Swedish citizen who has lived in UK for years but who was refused a status under the EUSS. After a successful appeal, he received a pre-settled status but this was not reflected on his eVisa and he was refused access to welfare support.
- Dawid Szewczyk - a Polish citizens who is facing pre-settled status limbo. Having taken an extended work placement leave out of UK, he is facing difficulties proving his residency in the UK and potentially losing out on a settled status because of it.
Mr Pakes committed to “being a friend of the3million” and he recognised that migrants are “neighbours, co-workers” and that it’s important for “the rights of people who have made their home here to be respected”.
What’s next?
With the eVisa system being an unstable platform, life altering IT issues could happen to any of us. Take a few minutes today to ask your MP to sign the Early Day Motion and support an independent review of the digital-only system:
