With growing unease I read the story about fellow EU citizen Monique Hawkins, whose application for a document certifying permanent residency was rejected by the Home Office even though she seems to have fully complied with the rules when submitting her application (Report, 29 December). I am German, 61 years old, married to a British husband and 16 years in the UK. Throughout these years I did my best to integrate. I worked, never claimed any benefit and participated in community life through voluntary work. The people around me never let me feel “foreign” or unwelcome and genuinely treat me like a fellow citizen. Like Mrs Hawkins, I never thought it was necessary to have my immigration status certified. This changed after the Brexit vote, because the life my husband and I have built together entirely depends on my right to remain in the UK. Consequently, I also decided to apply for British citizenship, which requires certification of permanent residency.

Brexit: Dutch woman who was told to leave UK now allowed to stay Read more

Like Mrs Hawkins, we discovered that our marriage is treated differently to non-EU/UK marriages and that it is discounted as a reason for certifying my status because I am an EU national. So I ploughed through the 85 pages of the application form and submitted it, together with the required evidence as advised in the guidance notes, feeling confident that I had done everything right. But after reading Mrs Hawkins’ story, I began to think that decisions made by the Home Office involve more unspoken rules and processes than can possibly be foreseen by applicants. My application is still being processed and I will let you how I get on.

Regina Erich

Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

• My wife is Swedish and has lived in the UK for 60 years, while proudly retaining her Swedish citizenship. She has been married to me for 57 years, is as English in her social and cultural experience as any English person and probably speaks our language more correctly than most native English speakers. She now suffers from dementia and is physically more or less immobile. She would be unable to conduct the defence of her right to be here herself, but if I were to write to the Home Office on her behalf would we receive a similarly disgraceful and insensitive letter as others, whose experiences you have reported, have done? Or maybe, even, immigration officers would turn up on our doorstep at 5am and cart my wife off to the nearest detention centre.

Name and address supplied

• The case of the Dutch mother of English children being advised by the Home Office to leave Britain after living here for 24 years perfectly legally, is not going to be an isolated one. Either in the UK or the rest of Europe. Significant numbers of internal refugees will be created because people are resident by virtue of EU citizenship while not necessarily meeting local residency rules. Many of these people will also fail to qualify for services, such as health, if they return to their country of origin.

A typical example would be a UK citizen who has spent modest life savings on an apartment in the Spanish Costas and has been surviving there on the British state pension for a year or two. Registering for Spanish residence can be daunting without the language skills and resources to pay for advice. Some like the Dutch mum would not be eligible and, should they be asked to leave once the protection of EU citizenship is removed, would arrive in Britain without the right to use the NHS and would also be ineligible for the house benefits needed to secure accommodation. The number of people displaced across Britain and Europe could run into millions. HMG and the EU negotiators will have to find a way of preventing what could become a significant internal refugee crisis among their own citizenship.

Olly Cooper

Cambridge and Algarrobo, Spain

• Re EU citizens applying for British citizenship and the long processing times, the Home Office’s pathetic response was to say that they had launched an express passport check-in service. They failed to say that the cost of nationalisation is over £1,000 plus all the add-ons, eg biometric residences permit, medical checks etc, and the process takes six months or more. A super premium service is £8,750.

Margaret King

Polegate, East Sussex

• It would seem that some EU citizens when applying for permanent residence in the UK are being subjected to requirements concerning comprehensive health insurance that the NHS clearly states they do not need to have (Call to scrap rule barring some EU citizens from the UK, 31 December). If a person from the EU, EEA or Switzerland is moving to England, a quick check of the NHS website reveals that: “Provision of free NHS treatment is on the basis of being ordinarily resident and is not dependent upon nationality, payment of UK taxes, national insurance (NI) contributions, being registered with a GP, having an NHS number or owning property in the UK.” Furthermore, “ordinarily resident means, broadly speaking, living in the UK on a lawful and properly settled basis for the time being.”

Is the Home Office trying to take away the rights of some EU citizens that the Department of Health states that they are entitled to?

Paul Tattam

High Peak, Derbyshire

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