At the session of the Polish parliamentary commission for liaison with Poles abroad on 24 February 2021, deputy vice head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Paweł Jabłoński informed about latest data on the EU Setllement Scheme. He declared that out of 903 thousand Polish citizens who applied for settled status, 662.800 thousand were approved and 164.220 thousand more obtained pre-settled status. There were also 6,162 new British citizenships granted to Poles between 30 June 2019 and 30 June 2020 (gov.uk). Number of granted citizenships severly fell during the lockdown in spring 2020.
Number of application nearly reaches estimated number of Polish citizens actualy residing in the UK, but as Jabłoński said, that there is however a group of several thousand or mayble more who have not sent the application. Among this group there are some who for various reasons were unable or unwilling to do so. Many of those are people affected by homelesness or without any valid ID document – Polish nor British.
On 15 March 2021there was a Zoom conference organized by the Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment group (https://acssmigration.wordpress.com/) on “Brexit, citizens’ rights and the hostile environment: Uneven stakes, unheard voices and unresolved issues beyond the headlines”. The speakers were describing the uncommon cases affected by Brexit, including Roma citzens of Central and East European countries who migrated to the UK after 2007, children of non-EU citizens born in a European country who later moved to the UK or people who lack mental capacity.
Among all these groups there are people with Polish citizenship who have not made their application for settled status. Brian Dikoff presented a paper on the EU Settled Status Scheme and EEA citizens living with mental health issues giving several examples of people whom his organization helped. These cases are escaping the system and their legal status could be questioned if they do not manage to apply by 30 June 2021. There are some non-governmental organizations, like the Migrants Organise (https://www.migrantsorganise.org/), which are trying to help these people with making their application on time.
