A Birmingham based law firm says it has seen almost a 50% increase in the number of applications for EU residents to settle in the UK in the wake of the Brexit vote.
UK Migration Lawyers, which deals in immigration law, said the numbers showed people were keen to deal with the uncertainty created by the decision to leave the European Union.
Case worker Hajer Duwebi, said the firm had been surprised by the rise.
“The lead up to the Brexit vote was a worrying time for the firm as leaving the EU would result in less immigrants as well as being much harder to process immigration requests,” she said.
“We were shocked when we started receiving more applications than usual. We were happy, but we expected prospective EU immigrants to be put off due to the Brexit situation.
“But after talking to a few of our clients we soon realised that applicants wanted to get in before the UK leaves the EU in 2016. Many had predicted Brexit and wanted to get their applications in regardless of the result to ensure they didn’t miss out when the UK leaves the EU.”
The firm chose not to disclose exactly how many applications they are currently dealing with, but admitted that calls for advice had also risen by 120% since the June referendum.
