On 4th June 2021 the president of the London based Federation of Poles in Great Britain CIO, Dr Wlodzimierz Mier Jedrzejowicz, sent the attached letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson MP about their dismay and alarm at how some EU citizens, who had lived, worked, drew benefits and paid taxes in this country legally, often for many years, had found themselves, as a result of the Withdrawal Agreement with the EU, facing the possibility of sliding into living outside the law and in danger of deportation, due to not responding in time to the need to upgrade their status by the June 30th deadline this year.
The Federation have expressed the cause of this dismay in ten clear points. While the majority of EU citizens had made this transition in their status successfully and in time, a large pool of EU citizens have been unable to meet the challenge of applying to this transition in their status, or have not been able to finalize their status for many different reasons as outlined in the letter. A major factor has been the difficulty of adequately publicizing the need to register for settled status during the restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dr Mier Jedrzejowicz points out that the uncertainty of the status of such EU citizens is not on detromental to them and their families but also to future community relations in this country and increases the administrative burden for the Home Office and other UK institutions in their dealings with this unknown quantity of EU citizens, whose size has only just been revealed by the fact that over 5 miilion applications for settled status have been made when previously there were records of only 3.5 EU citizens living in the United Kingdom.
Dr Mier jedrzejowicz concludes that "so many of these problems and potential injustices would be removed by extending the June 30th deadline for a further 6 months, in a period without Covid-19 restrictions."
The Federation of Poles in Great Britain is an umbrella organization for the main Polish social, cultural and academic organizations in Great Britain, and has been the voice of the organized Polish community in this country since 1947.
For further information or questions on this appeal from the Federation of Poles in Great Britain, please write to Federation of Poles in Great britain CIO at 240 King Street, London W6 0RF or contact Federation of Poles in GB spokesman, Wiktor Moszczynski, at email wikmos@gmail.com or by telephone 07786471833.