The expulsion of a Spanish citizen from the United Kingdom on December 26th when she attempted to return to the country where she lives after a short visit to family in Malaga has once again highlighted the legal uncertainty suffered by many community citizens on British territory Table brought in the post-Brexit era. Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares has demanded an explanation from London “for the expulsion of a Spanish citizen despite having the documents to enter the country where she lived with her husband.”
Albares is confident it is a “one-off event” and did not want to add fuel to the fire, but what happened has reignited the permanent tensions left by the divorce between the UK and the EU. Foreign sources have indicated that the Spanish Embassy in London is taking steps with the Foreign Office and the Home Office (Foreign and Home Office) to clarify the Spanish citizen's situation.
María (made up name because the Spaniard did not want to reveal her true identity) was detained at London's Luton Airport, where she spent the night before being returned to Spain by British authorities. She lives with her husband and in-laws in Bedfordshire (north of London). He had traveled to Malaga for a short family visit. “I went home because my sister had just had a little girl. Four days later I was taken to the examination room at Luton Airport, my phone was confiscated and I was told to wait. I spent the whole night there until they put me on a return plane,” he told The Guardian newspaper in Malaga.
María's situation is strange, but not unique. It has to do with the flexibility that the British government offers to those people who have tried to apply for the settlement permit – “EU Settlement Scheme” in English – after the deadline that was introduced before Brexit came into force that all Community citizens who were residing in the UK at the time (and could prove this), retained their right to reside, work and access public services such as health or social assistance. 376,370 Spaniards already have their settlement or pre-settlement permit (the first is issued five years after the start of the program or if the applicant has already been living in British territory for more than five years at the time of application). A total of 5.7 million local residents took advantage of this offer.
The deadline to apply for approval was June 30, 2021, but London continues to accept applications that “show good cause” and respond to all of them. The problem with these cases is that their legal status is somewhat suspenseful and uncertain. The expelled Spaniard had lived in the UK between 2014 and 2018 and later traveled to South Africa to accompany her husband, who was completing his doctoral thesis. They were only able to return to British territory after the end of the pandemic. After her return, María applied for her settlement permit. She was running out of time but was confident that she could prove that her stay in South Africa had not lasted long enough to invalidate the residency rights granted to her by the withdrawal agreement signed between London and Brussels.
He filed the paperwork in 2023 while preparing to change his career path, quitting design and working with animals. In June he received the answer: his application was rejected on the grounds that he had not been able to provide the necessary evidence of his stay on British soil. He requested a review of the case and received a Certificate of Processing (CoA). This was the document that allowed her to breathe a sigh of relief, as it preserved her right to reside, work, study or receive social benefits while the matter was finally resolved. This was the document she presented at the airport upon her return to London, confident that her situation was okay.
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“They told me that I was wasting my time and that it wasn't true that I could work [en el Reino Unido]“, explains the Spanish woman.
Britain's Home Office does not comment on individual cases, but its spokesman said that “Border Force's top priority is to secure our borders and we will never make concessions in this regard.”
“Officers may detain any arriving passenger for further examination if they are not initially satisfied that they meet entry requirements. “This decision will be made based on the passenger’s information, not their nationality,” the spokesperson added.
However, the UK authorities do not consider the CoA to be an entry visa and reserve the right to require the person at border control to prove that they were a resident of the UK before December 31, 2020, the day before Brexit came into force . This is one way to avoid possible fraud. María remains in Malaga and waits for her situation to be resolved.
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