How can I start again at 68?' Maria has spent 50 years in the UK and is fighting deportation

"The letter said the home secretary had decided to pursue her deportation. The secretary of state has deemed your deportation to be conducive to the public good, it continued, and accordingly it is in the public interest that you be removed from the UK without delay. The only thing that ties Maria to the Netherlands, her birthplace, is, she says, her passport."

"I want to say to the Home Office: Why can't you just leave me be? I'm a carer. How can I start my life again at the age of 68 in a country I don't know? Somebody at the Home Office who doesn't know me has made a decision about my life. Since I received the letter, I have had so many nightmares."

"For more than a decade, successive UK home secretaries have tried to outdo each other in making the country unwelcoming to migrants; the so-called hostile environment. Over the last year, with anti-immigrant party Reform UK racing ahead in the polls, the Labour government has been talking and acting tough on immigration, in an attempt to reduce that lead."

Maria, a 68-year-old Dutch national, received a deportation notice from the Home Office despite living in the UK for nearly 50 years and holding EU Settled Status since January 2022. She cares for her disabled partner Tom in west London and has no meaningful ties to the Netherlands beyond her passport. During most of her UK residence, freedom of movement within the EU meant she required no formal leave to remain. The deportation decision has caused her severe distress. This case reflects broader UK immigration policy trends, where successive home secretaries have pursued increasingly hostile approaches to migrants. The current Labour government has intensified these efforts, boosting deportation numbers, detaining asylum seekers, and reducing work visas in critical sectors like health and care, partly in response to anti-immigrant political pressure.

Read at www.theguardian.com