Patrizia Mayall moved to Britain from Italy after meeting her future husband, a young English man in the Royal Air Force, 21 years ago.Years later down the line, she ended up having children with this man, a 12-year-old son and an 8 year down. Unfortunately, her life in Great Britain may soon become a distant memory. Mayall was able to live in Britain under this special European Union rule, which states that people can move to any country across Europe, with no regard.
People have been doing this for decades. Many citizens, not just in Britain, but all over Europe, have mortgages, families, and jobs. With Brexit taking effect two years from now, 3.2 million E.U. citizens living in the U.K., and 1.2 million British people living across Europe, lives may be in jeopardy.
British Prime Minister Theresa May wants a simple solution for brits across Europe. However, people are unclear about what that is. Many E.U. citizens living in the U.K will have their right of residency. However, some may face some challenges in staying within the country. Their concerns are proving their right to live and work in the country, cut off date, welfare and pension rights, and the ability to bring over family members.
Due to the hysteria regarding Brexit, the public has created an advocacy group, to lobby their rights. A college professor, Jonathan Portes strongly believes that the government isn’t going to kick out millions of people. Although he believes it’s going to to take more than an E.U ‘passport to prove your residency.
That’s way many Europeans have been applying for permanent residency. This just acknowledges the rights that they already have. They believe that it will make it easy for the government to grant them citizenship status. This is still a long process, though. Some people who didn’t even have sickness insurance, can’t even apply. The Majority of citizens staying in Britain hadn’t even heard of sickness insurance, for instance, Mayall didn’t. She also doesn’t have pay slips from her jobs, which is also a requirement. She hadn’t worked since the 2000’s. Her lawyer even told her that her chances of getting rejected are pretty high.
