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13th Sep 2019

The Lib Dem councillor forced to apply to stay in the UK

Wayne Farry

“Let’s not put people in a position where they have to justify their existence”

Magdalena Filipova-Rivers moved to the United Kingdom at the age of 16 and almost 20 years later is a councillor for South Oxfordshire district.

Despite both of these facts, she has had been denied settled status by the Home Office as part of their EU Settlement Scheme.

Speaking to JOE, Filipova-Rivers hit back at the Home Office’s claims that has yet to make an application and criticised a system which values citizens purely on their economic worth.

“I have been here for 19 years and yet for a big majority of those years I am invisible to that system because I was either a student or a stay-at-home parent, or not economically active,” she said.

“It is almost dehumanising to link a person’s contribution and residency simply to what they do economically and how active they are economically.”