AN Australian family facing deportation were staying positive last night as a midnight deadline approached for them to meet Home Office visa requirements.
The case of Gregg and Kathryn Brain and their seven-year-old son Lachlan is making worldwide headlines – and as the family returned to Dingwall after a frantic day of television, radio and press interviews, Kathryn told The National: “We’re feeling upbeat, taking the view that no news is good news – and we’ve had no news from the Home Office.
"I’ve said this so many times today, but this is more than just home to us. It’s not just a lovely country to live in alongside lovely people, it goes much deeper than that. We feel we belong here.”
Pressure was mounting yesterday on Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Immigration Minister Robert Goodwill to honour the terms of the post-study work visa on which the family had pinned their hopes when they arrived here five years ago.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon again wrote to Rudd, asking her to consider a further extension to the family. “The Scottish Government is sympathetic to the Brain family, and others who are experiencing difficulty navigating the ever tightening UK immigration rules,” said a Scottish Government spokesperson.
“The First Minister has written to the Home Secretary again to ask her to consider permitting the family additional time to enable the family to explore further employment opportunities and complete arrangements to make their application under Tier 2 of the UK Points Based System.”
The family’s MP Ian Blackford urged Goodwill to reconsider. “We face a demographic challenge in the Highlands,” he said. “We have a family who wish to remain here who are of Scottish descent. There is widespread public support for the family and their desire to stay here.
“Both have been granted job offers in the past and Gregg has a long history of being in employment here. The only reason both are currently not in employment is because the Government refuses to confer on the family the right to work.”
Blackford added that the memory of the Highland Clearances was something that lingered on in his constituency. “We need young families to choose to live in the Highlands to reverse what has been a stagnant or declining population in parts of the Highlands and Islands," he said. "The imagery of removing descendants of Highlanders is not something that will be easily accepted, nor forgiven."
Addressing Goodwill directly, he said: “I appeal to you as the decent man that I know you are to help us resolve this situation.”
Gregg said the family had received about a dozen job offers, but none that would meet the specifications for a UK Tier 2 visa, and that he was hopeful a further 28-day extension could be secured.
“As we understand it, you can usually make an application within 28 days of the expiry of your leave period," he said. "You lose certain appeal rights because you are late with your application but it can still be done.”
“That is the ordinary case – our circumstances are rather complicated by the extra period of grace that has been given to us and we’re still talking to our solicitors just to find out exactly where we stand on that issue, but our understanding is we probably can, if an employer were to turn up, make a late application and that would be considered.
“We’re operating on the assumption that today is our deadline because we don’t know for certain, we’ve been desperately trying to get that put that together, ... but it is a possibility that we may be able to still continue on.”
Actor Tom Conti said he would donate £3,000 to the family if their bank balance was the reason they could not stay. “It’s terribly unfair to make rules and then someone comes along, abides by the rules, pulls a family from one country to another for perfectly good, valid reasons and then suddenly they change the rules,” he told the BBC’s World at One.
“There should be an amnesty for people who’re already here and as far as they know abiding by the rules that they were given. If you’re not allowed to work, how can you maintain a minimum balance? I remember the figure £3,000 was mentioned – I’d happily give them that if it would help.
“But the Home Office has to really behave properly and not do things that we would expect of the Soviet Union or Iran and move the goalpost when people have moved their families in good faith.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “All visa applications are considered on their individual merits, and applicants must provide evidence to show they meet the requirements of the immigration rules.”
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