A French woman who has an EU settlement application under way was detained and held by Home Office officials at a London airport for more than eight hours, reports The Guardian.
Tessa Stines has been living in the UK for the past year and volunteering for a charity, while making trips back to France during that period.
On returning last month through Gatwick, Stines, 23, was detained by Border Force officials in a holding room at the airport, alongside an Afghan woman and a Spanish woman.
“We were all in a very stressed state while we were being held in that room at the airport,” said Stines. “I took the contact details for the Spanish woman and saw on her Instagram later that she had been removed from the UK.
Stines was detained despite a rule change announced by the Home Office in May when Border Force officials were instructed not to detain EU citizens. They were told to instead issue immigration bail after heavy criticism following Guardian reports of multiple cases of women and men being held in removal centres earlier this year.
The Guardian knows of another individual with dual nationality from Britain and an EU member state who was detained last week at Manchester airport and mistakenly told she needed to apply for EU settled status within 28 days even though she has UK citizenship.
Unlike some of the previously reported cases, Stines was detained while her application for pre-settled status was still under way. Officials later admitted the decision to detain her was incorrect although no apology has been issued.