I am an EU citizen working at a highly ranked UK university. Like many of my European colleagues, I came to the UK for the reputation of its higher education system, and I want to stay. Today I completed my application to the EU settlement scheme pilot, which is open to university and NHS employees. I should be feeling relieved, or even joyful. But I don’t feel like celebrating.

The Home Office’s official confirmation letter stated how “pleased” they were to inform me that I had been “granted Limited Leave to Remain (LTR) in the United Kingdom for five years”. But rather than having gained anything, I feel that something has been taken away in the most clandestine and cynical of ways. Something vital, something irreplaceable.

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A child of the 1980s, I grew up in former West Germany. The first decade of my life is awash with memories of being stopped at border crossings to declare the purpose and, more importantly, duration of our stay – the emphasis being less on our date of arrival and more on our departure.

During my teenage years, these borders gradually disappeared, and by the time I went to university I considered myself a true citizen of Europe. Europe had become more than just a number of countries on a map, more than an abstract idea: it had become our home. If at any point someone had offered to trade my German passport for one that only said Europe, I would have snatched it out of their hands before the ink was dry.

The freedom to travel, work and live anywhere in Europe forms a crucial part of our identity as academics. Our work depends on an open international environment in which we move and exchange ideas freely. It makes us who we are, professionally and personally. My “success” in the pilot scheme took this freedom and identity from me, and seeing it written in black and white leaves me with a profound sense of sadness and regret. Did I betray my convictions by taking the opportunity as a higher education professional to sign up to the pilot scheme?

To add insult to injury, the supposedly straightforward, user-friendly process turns out to be a minotaur’s maze: a cold-hearted “computer-says-no” routine that would make the most hard-nosed bureaucrat blush. Anyone volunteering to put themselves through this ordeal could be forgiven for thinking that the ghost of Kafka must be haunting the corridors of the Home Office headquarters.

For starters, there is the EU Exit: ID Document Check app, available for Android devices (version 6.0 or higher) with near field communication technology, but not Apple’s iOS. For many, myself included, the app repeatedly fails to scan their passport on at least one of four mandatory stages, and after four failed attempts one is blocked from trying again for seven days. Another week in limbo.

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I called the telephone helpline, and although I spoke to at least five different people (including one senior manager), none of them had been briefed in how to use the actual app. My surprise at this revelation was matched only by the telephone operatives’ own embarrassment.

Introducing such a woefully underprepared and dysfunctional pilot scheme fundamentally undermines Theresa May’s rhetoric in referring to EU citizens as “friends, neighbours and colleagues”. “We want you to stay,” she told us back in September. But actions speak louder than words.

Those of us who managed to complete our application against the odds are reluctant to credit our success to the “straightforward, streamlined system” the government promised us. Despite claims to the contrary, the system appears designed precisely to put people off, not welcome them in.

Is it worth it? Are we paying too high a price (and I don’t mean the £65 application fee)? After months of waiting to hear what fate awaited EU citizens in the UK after Brexit, we’re left with a pyrrhic victory: a paltry Leave to Remain status entirely unfit for the modern international academic whose vocation is to push boundaries, not be restricted by them.