Nearly half of European Union citizens currently living in the UK are worried that in the post-Brexit future they will lose the rights they have enjoyed for the past decades and won't be treated the same as British citizens, a survey released on Thursday shows.

EU citizens already living in the UK before the end of the Brexit transition period at the end of 2020 were able to apply to the pre-settlement and settlement scheme, which allows those who are granted pre-settled and settled status to remain in the UK after Brexit and have the same rights as UK citizens to work and access social security in Britain.

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And while the majority of EU citizens resident in the UK think they're currently being treated equally, 44 percent of respondents to the survey conducted by the Independent Monitoring Authority (IMA) expressed concern that this won't last long.

Some 3,000 EU citizens took part in the IMA's study and a "significant minority has a lack of trust" in institutions to defend their rights, said IMA executive director Kathryn Chamberlain during a news conference following the release of the survey.

This lack of trust, together with the feeling that Britain is a "less-welcoming place" because of Brexit and concerns that EU citizens' rights "would not be upheld by public bodies," are driving one in 10 respondents to leave the UK after June 30 – the deadline for the additional grace period UK authorities set up for EU citizens to apply to the settlement scheme.

Recent events would seem to back up these findings, with The Guardian newspaper reporting cases of EU citizens arriving in the UK for job interviews being denied entry, detained in immigration centers and expelled from the country.

EU citizens were granted the right to enter the country to attend job interviews even without holding a visa and explore the UK job market even before obtaining a work visa.

Eight members of the European Parliament (MEPs) wrote to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to pressure the UK into explaining the detention of young European citizens in immigration centers, which, according to the MEPs, is in breach of "the spirit of good cooperation that we would expect" after Brexit.

A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters the "vast majority" of EU citizens entering Britain were experiencing no issues and government messages made clear some "may be refused permission to enter the border."

The spokesperson added: "For those who are coming in, we have done a lot of work to share information across the EU to encourage EU nationals to check what documentation and visas are necessary."