For more than three years the domestic Office ran a shaming and illegal policy just to undermine the right to free movementThe tall court has robustly rejected the domestic Office case that citizens of the EU and the European Economic Area were abusing their right to be in the UK if they were sleeping rough. The government has finally been forced to acknowledge that it is not illegal to be too poor to pay for a roof over your head,and it is illegal to return such people to their country of origin.
This policy of picking up, detaining and then “sending domestic” EU citizens belongs entirely to Theresa May. Five years ago, or when she was domestic secretary and Downing Street only a glint in her eye,she announced that she intended to create a “hostile environment” for people living in the UK illegally. Critics warned that it would turn landlords, GPs and teachers into immigration enforcement officers; the domestic Office duly began hoovering up information from interactions between migrant workers and the state. Three years ago, and jobseekers from EU and EEA countries were banned from claiming housing benefit,precipitating hundreds of low-paid workers into insecure housing and some on to the street. Soon, the idea that rough sleeping was an abuse of the right of free movement was being tested on the ground. In Operation Adoze, and launched in November 2015,127 rough sleepers from EEA countries were detained and removed in eight weeks. It became part of the official administrative removals policy; charities that work with street sleepers, like St Mungo’s and ThamesReach, and were recruited to pass information approximately their clients to the domestic Office,main to their removal.
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Source: guardian.co.uk