New EU immigration regulations may lead to deportations

[Mistigri]

Article on new HO regulations concerning the rights of EU citizens in the UK:

www.freemovement.org.uk/briefing-legal-status-eu-citizens-uk/

On the face of it, these new rules would appear to give the HO the right to deport any EU citizen without permanent residency rights, who is not currently exercising treaty rights and who does not have private health insurance. This will include many EU spouses of UK citizens who are not currently working and cannot document a 5 year period during which they exercised treaty rights - regardless of the amount of time they have spent in the UK.

This gives a whole new slant to those HO letters suggesting that EU citizens make plans to leave. Might be time for affected EU citizens to consider legal advice :-/

(Weird and hostile way of opening negotiations with the EU27 over migrants' rights - I am coming to the conclusion that May may actually want the negotiations to fail).

I thought New Orleans was a very drunk driver rather than a targeted attack? Whereas there seems to be reason to suppose that the Romanian car washers were deliberately targeted.

Lentil the issue appears to be that although you can quite legally rely on the NHS if you are ordinarily resident, even if not working, you can't do so for the purposes of ILR. It's frankly a ridiculous situation especially as this requirement seems to have been imposed retrospectively.

Where is the evidence that hate crime has actually increased as opposed to an increase in reporting it, due to the focus of Brexit.

BBC/SKY news seems to indicate Brexit has encouraged more people to report it without any actual increase. So remoaner spin?

You can't have it both ways. If there was no increase in hate crime after the Referendum, just more people reporting it, then it implies that there always was a nasty undercurrent of xenophobia.

(But why bother arguing with the trolls?)

Yes, New Orleans one was drunk too Misti and the Romanian car washers' incident was a drunk. Just watching out, they seem frequent.

TeamLentil good that you had the health cover.

Legally, I find this precedent of retrospective legislation problematic. If a crime or procedure is not a legal requirement but subsequently becomes one, who's to say what is done or not done today does not became a crime tomorrow.

Misti, cake, woman, red, elements, ghost, perigrina, fake and others

cool, cheers rufus! I won't risk doing a cake emoji!

woman

Probably for the best lovely

Immigration specialist here.

It's not retrospective legislation; it's part of the Citizens' Directive and implemented within the EEA Regulations of 2006. It wasn't widely known about which is a major problem.

Thanks for that LauraMipsum does that mean that for 11 years EU citizens should have had and kept records of private health insurance? Was it publicised? ( Is there a loophole ) Don't answer that.

To be a "qualified person" you have to be

• employed
• self-employed
• a student (with PHI)
• self sufficient (with PHI)

there are also a few odd categories in that you remain a qualified person if you leave work to do a vocational course / get injured in the course of work and so on, but those four are the main ones.

So if you have a really easy case and can show 5 years of PAYE or tax returns, no need for PHI. It's only if you're self sufficient or a student - and many SAHMs will be self-sufficient - that you need PHI.

Technically you only need evidence of being a qualified person for the relevant 5 year period. So if (for example) you were a qualified person from 2007 - 2012, you acquired permanent residence in 2012 even if you haven't done a stroke of work since.

Does that make sense?

As for was it publicised... well, as much as any EU directive is publicised, which isn't much.

Technically you only need evidence of being a qualified person for the relevant 5 year period. So if (for example) you were a qualified person from 2007 - 2012, you acquired permanent residence in 2012 even if you haven't done a stroke of work since.

So in my case, I have the continuous five years of P60s before I became a student, that should suffice? I know this is probably a bit paranoid, but I'm just worried that they will find fault with my PHI (I'm attached to my DH's and it doesn't cover everything - for example maternity care, not that I will need it )

it's part of the Citizens' Directive and implemented within the EEA Regulations of 2006. It wasn't widely known about which is a major problem.

Isn't it the interpretation that is new, ie that being entitled to use the NHS isn't considered evidence of comprehensive health insurance?

The French tried something like this - not allowing new EU migrants access to their healthcare services unless working (got the British expat community in a tizzy) - but IIRC they got slapped down by the EU and the problem went away.

I thought that the HO decision that having legal access to the NHS did not constitute comprehensive healthcare insurance was being challenged by the EU?

Laura, I'd add that it's misleading and inaccurate to use the words "private healthcare insurance" (which is not what the EU regulations say) instead of "comprehensive sickness insurance".

The Commission has started infringement proceedings against the UK on this issue - not that this helps EU migrants right now.

Mistigri they got slapped down because a group of us "expats in a tizzy" formed a pressure group and with the help of MEPs got the ruling changed. It was a deeply worrying time and we faced having to leave because OH has BP medication and couldn't get private health insurance.

Mistigri they got slapped down because a group of us "expats in a tizzy" formed a pressure group and with the help of MEPs got the ruling changed. It was a deeply worrying time and we faced having to leave because OH has BP medication and couldn't get private health insurance.

Yes I didn't word it very sympathetically, sorry. The point being that when other EU states have tried to apply PHI requirements to migrants that were not applied to nationals, they got slapped down.

IIRC what the French tried to do was to make migrants take out PHI for the 3 year period between reciprocal healthcare access (via previous NI contributions) running out, and the 5 year period for permanent residence.

The French have also been trying it on with regards to family benefits since brexit - asking migrants from the UK to provide a "titre de sejour", presumably in the hope to deterring some applications - but so far it is just posturing.

It does give the lie to the idea that EU states will be desperate to carry on providing health care and benefits to their non-working UK residents after brexit. Personally I expect a fair bit of tit for tat in the coming months and years.

Basically we had come to the end of our first "leavers" S1 form and were ready to pay 8% of income into what is now PUMA. The Sarkozy government said we had to have private insurance which OH couldn't get.
BTW we are gathering documents for the Carte de Sejour and it does seem that the income requirement for pensioners might be the minimum for French pensioners rather than the SMIC? It doesn't affect us either way, but does seem logical.
One of my pensioner friends has just got her nationality through, which is great news.

Emily The only info I can find on the carte résident longue durée specifies the SMIC, or having a pension paid via a French state scheme - but it being France the rules will most likely be interpreted locally. When we moved here, it was easy to get a titre de sejour in the neighbouring departement, more difficult where we lived - my (British) partner was turned down in 1998 despite having assets of over £100k. Not especially looking forward to going back to that crap, although we are personally not a risk of falling foul of the regulations as we have French kids and are both in well paid work.

If you pop over to the pro Brexit threads everybody is still delirious with joy about how it's all going.

I wonder if Brexit with result in an influx of British pensioners being booted out of the Costas and a simultaneous exodus of care workers back to Eastern Europe.

I bloody well hope so. Can't have cake and eat it too.

I wonder if Brexit with result in an influx of British pensioners being booted out of the Costas and a simultaneous exodus of care workers back to Eastern Europe.

If that happens, fakename, it will be a massive boost to the British economy because, apparently, British pensioners in Spain are major contributors to their economy whilst foreigners in the UK are drains on ours. As was explained on the Westminster thread. There was some impeccable reasoning given, I believe.

how it's all going.

Literally nothing has happened, apart from some foreigners getting beaten up/ run over / abused, a few foreigners leaving (and a few less arriving), and few companies thinking "sod this for a game of soldiers" and making Paris/ Frankfurt/ Dublin estate agents happy.

I'm not sure which bit they are pleased about; the first two, presumably.

Brexit so far has been a bit of a damp squib on both sides - we all forgot that economies are juggernauts and don't turn quickly. 2018 could be interesting* though.

• word used from the perspective of the bemused external observer, not the poor sods who are going through it, of course.

I wonder if Brexit with result in an influx of British pensioners being booted out of the Costas and a simultaneous exodus of care workers back to Eastern Europe.

The rich ones won't come back, why would they? They can buy private health insurance and hire immigration lawyers. The ones that return will be like my DH's aunt and uncle currently in Portugal: uneducated, poor, no grasp of the local lingo, and no money to buy healthcare or pay for help with negotiating new paperwork.

In the same way, restrictions on Britons moving to the EU won't hit the educated and rich, it will affect the JAMs who dreamt of a retirement in the sun.

TeamLentil

"So in my case, I have the continuous five years of P60s before I became a student, that should suffice?"

Yes, as long as you haven't been away for more than 2 years since then (as an absence of 2 years or more would invalidate your permanent residence).

Mistigri no, it's not a new interpretation, although nobody bothered to enforce it until 2011. The HO have won the only case there's been (on Bailii for anyone who wants to read it: www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2014/988.html)

Allegedly the Commission are looking into it but nothing has happened there in nearly five years.

You're right though I should have said comprehensive sickness insurance not PHI.