Huge backlog as EU citizens rush to secure British residency
EU citizens worried about their right to remain in Britain have inundated the Home Office with applications to secure their UK residency, leading to an official backlog that has trebled since the summer of 2015.
The figures emerged on a day that Labour demanded Theresa May guaranteed the rights of the more than 3 million EU citizens to remain in the UK before Brexit negotiations begin, with MP Keir Starmer saying there was “a mounting sense of very real injustice” over the issue.
The number of outstanding applications from European citizens to secure their residency status in Britain went from 37,618 in June 2015 to almost 100,000 “currently in progress” in early July 2016, including those seeking permanent residence cards and documents for non-EU family members of Europea...