EUSS Advice and Support in Leicester
From April to June 2025, we have seen and supported with their immigration issues over 89 EU and non EU nationals in Leicester. We have submitted 4 applications to the EUSS over the last three months and provided one off advice and other types of support for 85 people.
The complexity of the cases that we are seeing remains high. A new trend that we are seeing is the validation of late applications. For applicants it is impossible to have late application valid. NEUK, as an organisation with legal expertise, starts to have problems with late applications being accepted. This only starts in June 2025. Prior to June 2025 we had all our late applications accepted and processed.
Durable partners still remain the most challenging applications. People are struggling to prove that they were in a durable relationship before 2020. Most of the time one of the couple was residing in the UK and the other one was just visiting.
We are also facing issues for children born after 2020 to have status granted in line with grandparents. Unfortunately, children born after 2020 cannot apply for EUSS in line with their grandparents.
Another issue is children born in the UK to submit applications for EUSS. Children usually have issues getting their passport of EU nationality issued as the embassies take more than 3 months to issue the passport. Then those children are submitting late applications for EUSS. Parents do not usually know that they can submit paper applications without passports. Usually parents need legal immigration advice to be aware of this option and that is quite difficult as there is very little free immigration advice for EUSS, especially in Leicester.
We continue to receive referrals from our partners SOCOPA (Somali community) and Social Justice for all (Roma community).
We are also receiving referrals through our wider networks, including British Red Cross in Leicester, Women for Change and through word of mouth.
Outreach
In April, we attended De Montford University’s Annual Lecture. It was a very successful event about race, respectability and disproportionality.
In May, NEUK joined Highfields Centre in their annual International Workers Day Celebrations. It was a great networking event , where people from local organisations , MPs and representatives of many unions attended with the main purpose of fighting poverty in work and communities.
In June, we attended a few interesting events organised by our partner, Socopa. The event was called ‘Reusing Textiles ‘, an engaging workshop promoting Somali culture and tradition where people came together celebrating their culture through different materials, food and music.
At the end of June, British Red Cross Leicester celebrated Refugee Week with a great event, where different organisations gathered and showcased their services for the asylum seekers, refugees and migrants living and wanting to settle in the UK.
We continue to run our free clinics on Wednesday at De Montford University and on Fridays at Highfields Centre.
Contact us for outreach work in Leicester:
If you are a community group or organisation which would like to discuss working in partnership with us, or for us to run a session with your staff/ volunteers on the EU Settlement Scheme, please contact
Marinela Bojaxhiu on marinela.bojaxhiu@neweuropeans.uk
If you work with someone who needs support with the EU Settlement Scheme please email: help@neweuropeans.uk
