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

2026-02-26 - 13:33

She left the Netherlands for Britain in the 1970s at just 17. Now, after receiving a short suspended sentence, she faces removal to a country she hasn’t lived in for five decades or visited since 1999 Last December, a letter from the Home Office dropped through Maria’s door. When she read it, she screamed. At 68, she lives with her disabled partner, Tom, who she cares for, in a rental home in west London, and has been resident in the UK for almost 50 years. 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. For most of her five decades in residence in the UK, the country was part of the EU, so there was no need for her to apply for leave to remain. In January 2022, she was given EU Settled Status (EUSS), a form of indefinite leave to remain for EU and other European citizens who had been living in the UK for five years or more on 31 December 2020. Continue reading...