The rate at which the UK denies entry to EU citizens is much higher Brexit News

The UK has denied entry to EU citizens at a much higher rate this year, although overall fewer trips have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

According to data from the Home Office on Thursday, UK border officials blocked 3,294 EU citizens from January to the end of March, almost 570 per cent more than the 493 denied in the same period last year.

The sharp rise has come as the UK and the EU have established post-Brexit relations and although COVID has undergone tremendous changes in travel and tourism due to the COVID crisis, the UK has plunged into land closures across the country and imposed strict quarantine regimes. arrivals.

Passenger traffic to UK airports has fallen by 94 per cent in the first three months of 2021 compared to a year ago, according to data compiled by the UK Civil Aviation Authority.

UK border officials drove most EU citizens back to European ferry ports or the Eurostar train terminal in Paris, the data showed.

However, almost 750 were deported after arriving at UK airports or ports.

According to the Office of the Interior, more than two-thirds of all foreigners – 2,118 people – were Romanian nationals.

The rate of Romanians denied entry rose by 867% in the first three months of this year compared to the same period in 2020.

Bulgarian citizens also seemed to be disproportionately affected by the rise in denials. Three hundred were denied in the first quarter of 2021, up from 19 a year earlier.

The Interior Ministry did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment in the publication.

‘The numbers will go up’

After Brexit, EU citizens who want entry to work or study in the UK have new visa requirements.

Freedom of movement between the couple is over, even as citizens of the UK and EU travel together without a leisure visa.

Several media outlets have been reported this month in EU immigration centers that EU citizens have been detained for several days in UK immigration centers.

The Interior Ministry said earlier this month that it would provide an immigration bond rather than arrest those who refused to enter the country.

“We have updated our guidelines to clarify that those who have been refused entry to the UK and including EU citizens should be given an immigration bond, if any,” a Home Office spokesman told Reuters.

But experts suggested that the number of deportations and arrests would increase as international travel is likely to resume in the coming months, at least to a limited extent, in line with the phasing out of COVID-19 restrictions in the UK and other parts of Europe.

“These figures are likely to rise,” Marley Morris, associate director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), told the Guardian newspaper, focusing on migration and trade policies. “A lot more people will move away.”

New immigration statistics released today reveal signs of the first impact of the end of free movement.

The most striking thing I’ve seen so far is that the number of EU passengers in the UK has refused to enter the port pic.twitter.com/zwBCqj1ghM

– Marley Morris (@MarleyAMorris) May 27, 2021

Hong Kong visa applications are on the rise

On Thursday, a new report showed that the UK has received far more orders from Hong Kong than from the EU, new system it was opened to the inhabitants of the old British colony and the post-Brexit rules came into force.

Hong Kong residents made 34,000 applications to live in the UK in the first three months of the year, compared to 5,354 for any type of visa in the EU, the Oxford University Migration Observatory said.

The Migration Observatory says there is less demand from the EU for COVID blockades and a more expensive and restrictive post-Brexit system.

“Under normal times, we could expect employers to know what they need to do to recruit EU citizens after the end of free movement,” said Madeleine Sumption, director of the Observatory.

“But the pandemic means many businesses still don’t have to use the new immigration system. So it might take some time to figure out how many EU citizens move to the UK under the new rules and what their impacts are.”

EU citizens living in the UK before 2021 can apply for established status under a separate scheme.

Meanwhile, numerous requests from Hong Kong were linked to the latest initiative announced by the UK to allow people in the territory to apply for a visa and become British citizens.

The move followed a controversial national security law in Beijing last year as part of a move to challenge the independence of the financial center.

Hong Kong was handed over to China in 1997, where it was promised that its continued freedoms would be preserved, including freedom of expression and an independent legal system.

But Beijing has been constantly moving to tighten territory.

The UK government has planned its scheme – open to holders of a British International Foreign (BNO) passport, with special status created before 1997 and with a population of almost three million in Hong Kong – to attract more than 300,000 people and their dependents.