An EU citizen caught up in a Home Office backlog of applications for post-Brexit residency status has been forcibly removed from the UK.
Costa Koushiappis, 39, a Greek Cypriot, was put onboard a plane to Amsterdam with only three days’ notice. Speaking as he was being escorted on to the aircraft in Edinburgh shortly before 9am on Friday, he said he could not understand his unfolding nightmare.
“I am here with the Border Force. They have all my documents. I can’t talk about how I feel because if I do will have a breakdown,” Koushiappis added.
When it became clear late on Thursday night that his lawyer was unable to get the Home Office to reverse the Border Force decision, his friends came to his flat to help him pack up.
His employer at the motorbike franchise Two Wheels, Stuart West-Gray, described what had happened as a “disgrace”.
He said: “I spoke to him this morning. He said the Border Force officials who had escorted him were very good to him and told him he had conducted himself very well, had adhered to the bail conditions and they didn’t have to come look for him this morning.
“But why give someone three days to pack up their life? You would think they would at least give them 28 days so he could mount a legal case. When he was in the shop last night as we were closing, he said: ‘I’ve got to go round and say goodbye to everyone.’ He was in tears as he went round the shop floor. It was absolutely heartbreaking.”
Koushiappis arrived in the UK in 2017, before Brexit, and – after an absence due to poor health and then Covid lockdowns – did not return until 2021. His subsequent application for pre-settled status was rejected by the Home Office on 28 October 2022. He then asked for his case to be given closer consideration, as the rules allow.
Days later, on 2 November 2022, he applied for the “administrative review” but was told as recently as last week the decision could take two years to be processed such was the backlog of cases.
Andrew Jordan, an immigration lawyer from the charity Settled, took up his case this week, saying due process had to take place. But a flurry of emails to the Home Office and to the Independent Monitoring Authority, the statutory body set up after Brexit to protect the rights of EU citizens living in the UK before Brexit, came to nothing.
Jordan has accused the Home Office of breaching the withdrawal agreement and said he will be taking the case to the EU.
He said: “At no point does the withdrawal agreement include anything about exercising administrative review right or even appeal rights from outside the UK. This is something new being brought into the mix. I am sure the EU will have something to say about this.
“The whole point of the withdrawal agreement is to allow people here to have their rights protected here in the UK. It was never envisaged they could be removed and then have matters dealt with while outside the country.”
In a letter to the Home Office’s team dealing with vulnerable EU citizens, he argued that the “removal directions … disregards the fact that there is a valid pending administrative review of his EU settlement scheme refusal” and the Border Force decision “ignores the fact that our client was exercising European Economic Area treaty rights prior to 31 December 2020 [Brexit day] as protected by the withdrawal agreement”.
He said that under the rules his client had a right for his case to be reviewed and to appeal before a judge if he faced a further adverse decision. “None of that process has happened,” Jordan added.
The Home Office said it did not comment on individual cases.
