The U.K. Home Office has started to refuse EU citizens' settlement applications | Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images UK immigration refuses EU citizen applications to settle in Britain 300 applicants rejected on grounds they failed to provide sufficient evidence.

LONDON — The British government has begun declining applications from European Union citizens to its EU settlement scheme, with 300 applications rejected in February.

The Home Office said Thursday that the refusals related to cases that had been under consideration for several months and applicants had failed to provide the government with sufficient evidence or information.

Of the 300 refused applications, six were declined because of evidence of serious or persistent criminality while the remainder were rejected because the applicant failed to prove their eligibility.

The scheme allows citizens from European Economic Area countries and Switzerland to prove they have the right to continue to live, work and access public services in the U.K. after the end of the Brexit transition period on December 31.

Nazek Ramadan, director of the campaign group Migrant Voice, said the fact that some applications were being declined was a “worrying and unexpected development.”

The Home Office should not refuse applications on information-related grounds, she said, because there are “countless valid explanations” for an individual failing to provide evidence. These include fearing interactions with immigration services, learning disabilities or health problems, she said.

“The Home Office must urgently provide more information about these cases and their decision to refuse,” she said, including how long the applications were in the system and how many times caseworkers tried to contact the applicants.

By the end of February, the Home Office had received more than 3.3 million applications to the scheme, with 235,800 in the month of February alone. The department processed 2.9 million applications and granted settled status to 58 percent and pre-settled status to 41 per cent.

A total 19,100 received a withdrawn or void outcome, and 6,800 were deemed invalid, meaning some of them would have to reapply.

Kevin Foster, minister for future borders and immigration, said EU citizens have made an enormous contribution to the U.K. and it’s good news more than three million have already been granted status under the scheme.

“We are always looking for reasons to grant status and refusals are a last resort. However, it is necessary in the tiny number of cases where an individual is a serious or persistent criminal or is simply ineligible to apply,” he said. “Whilst the scheme is simple and easy to use for many, there is a wide range of support on offer for those who need it, be it face-to-face, over the phone or online.”