Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum.

The Home Office has begun telling EU citizens to get out, writing to a man in immigration detention to suggest “you could avoid becoming destitute by returning to Romania or another EU member state where you could enjoy access to all your ECHR [rights] without interference”. But the department says that it does not “recognise” the letter, the Observer reports.

More cases of hardship caused by Home Office policy on spousal visas are coming to public attention. Over 13,000 people have signed a petition urging officials not to deport an American man who looks after his disabled wife, according to the Independent.

At the risk of hyperbole, it sometimes seems that no-one is safe: a woman who has lived in the UK for 50 years was detained in Yarl’s Wood for a week (BBC News).

With post-Brexit immigration policy still up in the air, a Migration Watch report on the subject was widely publicised; see e.g. the Times (£) and Evening Standard. The Daily Mail – we read it so you don’t have to – reports that “EU migrants would be able to come to Britain after Brexit as long as they have a job under Home Office plans”.

Colin has pointed out on this blog before that all sorts of industries will be lobbying for sector-specific free movement, and this week saw one example: Creative Scotland says that free movement of artists is “critical” for the Scottish economy (Scotsman).

Some articles from Free Movement hit the headlines last week. The Guardian picks up our investigation into permanent residence waiting times, and contributor Nick Nason was interviewed by the i about the deportation of an enterprising American couple in Inverness.

Asylum seekers face “squalid, unsafe slum conditions” according to major NGOs urging improvements to asylum accommodation (Guardian).

But in somewhat happier asylum news, child refugees were at Parliament on Tuesday to thank MPs and peers for their chance at a fresh start (Guardian again).

Finally, some light relief from the Sunday Express, which argues that the reason 19,000 EU citizens have applied for naturalisation as British citizens in the first half of 2017 is because they “back Brexit”.