European nationals deported from Scotland

The Home Office arrested and removed 26 European nationals from Scotland for sleeping rough on the streets in a move now deemed unlawful, Freedom of Information requests by Holyrood magazine have revealed.

From February 2017 a change in Home Office policy meant that someone from the European Economic Area (EEA) found rough sleeping would, under certain circumstances, be considered to be in breach of their treaty rights and would be liable to be arrested and removed from the UK.

But the policy was then ruled unlawful by the High Court in December last year, which found the Home Office’s position to be contrary to EU law, leaving EEA nationals detained under the policy potentially entitled to compensation.

Freedom of Information requests from Holyrood show that, of the 32 people arrested for rough sleeping between the introduction of the policy and the High Court’s intervention, 26 were deported from the UK.

The Home Office told Holyrood that it ceased all operations against rough sleeping EEA citizens after the High Court ruling on 14 December 2017.

You can read the full article here.

If you want to know more about the rights of EU citizens now and post-Brexit, check out the Civil Society Brexit Project Information briefing here or about workshops on EU Citizens’ rights here.

 

 

Image credit: Craig Chew-Moulding CC by 2.0, Flickr