Sam Schwarzkopf, a German neuroscientist living in the UK, contacted the Guardian after it published the story of Monique Hawkins.
He said he had a similar experience at the hands of the Home Office to Hawkins, a Dutch woman who was told to make preparations to leave the UK after she applied for British citizenship following the EU referendum. This was despite her living in the UK for 24 years and having two children with her British husband.
Schwarzkopf said: “I am a German citizen who moved to the UK in 1999 to study neuroscience at Cardiff University, both my undergraduate degree and my PhD. After I got my PhD in 2007, I decided to remain in the UK to work. I am now married to a British woman and am a faculty member at University College London.
“I originally applied for that permanent residence document in March 2016 because it is necessary for a British citizenship application.
“In June, one week before the referendum, my application was rejected. The reason was that I hadn’t included my passport in the application, only a legally certified colour copy. This rejection letter contained the phrase that I ‘should now make preparations to leave’ the UK.
“I was pretty pissed off at that moment, so I wrote a couple of complaint letters including [one] to the then home secretary Theresa May (she never got back to me).
“Just to be clear, I don’t think that was anything more than a mistake on the part of the Home Office. They simply use these standard letters.
“But it is also quite outrageous. Under current rules, EU/EEA [European Economic Area] nationals automatically gain permanent residence after five years (provided certain criteria are met at least). The PR document I applied for doesn’t give me permanent residence rights, it simply confirms them. So it really should be a formality. But the Home Office seems to want to make it excessively difficult for people.
“The rejection letter actually acknowledged that I had a German passport. It said that they couldn’t verify my nationality from a photocopy because they can be fabricated. That’s fair enough, but you might think they practice some assumption of innocence until proven guilty of passport forgery.
“But I would also have fully accepted if they had simply told me to reapply and include the passport this time. However, telling me to leave the country even though it should be blatantly obvious that in all likelihood I actually am an EU citizen is just offensive, and more importantly it also directly violates free movement rights.
“My MP got involved in this, writing letters to the Home Office, and this was very helpful. At first they explained that this was simply the way they write their rejection letters, but eventually someone wrote back with an apology. More importantly, they said they would take this issue on board and consider changing the phrasing. From the story in the Guardian, it sounds that at least so far they haven’t changed it yet.”
