MORE than 50 parliamentarians are calling on Boris Johnson to urgently lift the EU settlement scheme deadline next month or risk tens of thousands of citizens from the bloc becoming undocumented. 

The group of cross-party MPs and peers argue that the Home Office’s outreach campaign has failed to reach sufficient numbers of EU citizens during the pandemic, which has disrupted support services. 

In a letter to the Prime Minister today, the group warned that failure to lift the fast-approaching deadline for EU citizens to apply for settled status in Britain on June 30 could result in significant numbers of people being stripped of their right to stay in the country.  

Those who do not apply for the scheme will be left vulnerable to the Home Office’s hostile environment policy, including detention and deportation, the letter states. 

SNP MP Neale Hanvey, who co-ordinated the cross-party letter, urged the PM to remove the arbitrary and inhumane deadline. 

“The UK government cannot claim to be extending a hand of friendship to the world when in the early days of Brexit, they remove rights and status from EU citizens who have simply missed an administrative deadline for settled status,” he said. 

More than five million EU citizens have successfully applied for settled status under the scheme, but MPs warn that others may be experiencing barriers to secure their right to remain. 

Those most are risk of falling through the cracks of the scheme, the letter notes, are vulnerable residents, including the elderly, victims of abuse, Roma communities and looked-after children. 

Recent research by the Children’s Society found that only 39 per cent of looked-after children with EU citizenship have submitted applications for settled status.