1000’s of migrants from nations like India, Pakistan, and Somalia entered the UK final yr utilizing the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS), a program initially supposed for Europeans post-Brexit. Critics describe this route as a possible loophole for prolonged migration.
Key Visa Figures for 2025
Official information reveals that 6,709 non-European people acquired EUSS visas in 2025, properly after the scheme’s most important utility deadline of June 2021. Amongst them, 1,124 have been Indian nationals, 855 Somali residents, and 791 Pakistani nationals.
Over the three years ending December 2025, non-Europeans submitted 78,785 EUSS purposes, with 33,658 authorised. This consists of 6,656 Indians, 5,413 Pakistanis, and three,768 Somalis. Practically all approvals stemmed from EUSS household permits, masking spouses, sturdy companions, dependent kids, or mother and father of EU residents within the UK.
Relations from any nation can apply indefinitely in the event that they show a pre-Brexit relationship with an EU citizen residing within the UK.
Rising Considerations Over Scheme Utilization
A authorities official described the continued inflow as ‘insane.’ Consultants name for a full investigation into doable abuses and urge closure of what they time period a ‘backdoor’ entry 5 years previous the deadline.
Robert Bates, analysis director on the Centre for Migration Management, notes that the EUSS has confronted points since launch and stays a significant factor in long-term UK migration. He states: ‘There’s a urgent want for an actual inquiry into a few of the abuse and untoward practices which were allowed to proliferate because of this scheme. It has been almost 5 years because the deadline for many purposes below the scheme and it’s now time that it was closed for good.’
Reported abuses embrace a Ghanaian lady granted standing regardless of lacking her wedding ceremony, and circumstances of sham marriages uncovered between March 2018 and September 2021, totaling 365 situations.
By September 2025, EUSS noticed 6.4 million complete purposes, together with 531,000 from non-European relations, per the Migration Observatory at Oxford College.
Hyperlinks to Advantages Claims
EUSS holders symbolize 9.2 % of Common Credit score claimants, in keeping with February Division for Work & Pensions information.
Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s Residence Workplace spokesman, labels the scheme a ‘rip-off on the British folks’ and a backdoor for teams together with Somalis, Pakistanis, and Indians to entry advantages. He provides: ‘The federal government should clarify why this scheme continues to be open 5 years after it was supposed to shut. Britain spent £15 billion within the final 18 months on Common Credit score welfare for overseas nationals. The overwhelming majority went to EU Settled Standing [migrants]… Reform is the one social gathering that can terminate all of it.’
Official Response
The Residence Workplace maintains there may be ‘no proof’ of abuse by non-European migrants. It explains that EUSS phrases come up from the Brexit Withdrawal Settlement, binding the UK to just accept late household purposes. A spokesman states: ‘Now we have discovered no proof that the scheme is being abused on this approach. The federal government is doing the whole lot in its energy to cut back internet migration.’
Individually, almost 3,500 visas went to people from 112 international locations, together with Iran, Iraq, India, Afghanistan, Palestinian territories, and Nigeria, through devoted Ukrainian refugee schemes.
