The Government has said EU nationals who don’t have settled status after Brexit won’t be automatically be deported.
Under current plans, EU nationals in the UK have until June 2021 to apply to stay in the UK with settled status after Brexit.
Until today’s announcement there has been uncertainty around what will happen to those EU nationals without settled status after the deadline.
Speaking after a meeting with the Brexit Secretary yesterday, the European Parliament’s Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt said he’d been given assurances that they would not face automatic deportation.
Verhofstadt said he believed EU nationals would be given grounds to explain why they could not apply for the status within the deadline and apply for it later.
Downing Street has now confirmed the position.
The Labour Party and others have been calling for the EU settlement scheme to be made ‘declaratory’, meaning EU nationals are automatically given settled status without the need to apply.
