AN American man fighting for him and his wife to remain in Scotland after the Home Office told them they had 30 days to leave has spoken about the toll the stress of the case is causing.
Russell and Ellen Felber, who bought the Torridon Guest House in Inverness almost six years ago, applied to become permanent residents in Scotland, but their application was rejected. In a letter delivered the week before Christmas, the Home Office told them they had to leave.
Russell told The National yesterday that Ellen, who has been hospitalised several times through stress, had missed her first Midnight Mass.
“Bishop Mark Strange was in our house last night,” he said. “He brought the Holy Communion to us because my wife wasn’t able to go to the cathedral for Midnight Mass due to her stress. That was the first time ever she wasn’t able to go to Midnight Mass at Christmas.
“Last year my wife was ringing bells for Christmas midnight mass, but now she is ill with fear and stress. She is not able to leave the house and she can’t understand what suddenly is going wrong, because all these years we had worked very hard to ‘get it right’.”
He added that Ellen was having nightmares about being forced out of their home following the change in immigration rules that appears to be behind their rejection.
“Those changes in immigration rules took place very recently, we were not even aware of them,” said Russell, adding that they had received "tremendous" letters and emails of support, as well as backing from their neighbours.
Strange, the Bishop of Moray, Ross and Caithness, had previously criticised the Home Office for not even acknowledging a letter he had sent them in support of the family.
“Ellen just didn’t feel able to come out, so they weren’t able to get to the cathedral for midnight mass,” he said. “So, as we do with many people who can’t make it to mass, I took communion to them yesterday, which we shared in the front room of the bed and breakfast.
“At the moment the Home Office will be on their lengthy Christmas break and the last communication I had was them saying they couldn’t discuss anything with me. So I’ve now got a signed document from Ellen and Russell to say that they can discuss things with me.
“I think it’s a matter of now waiting until the Home Office come back to work. The main concern is to make sure the paperwork is ready to be submitted to the court at the beginning of the year, so their solicitor is working on that.
“Because of the time of year this is a very painful hiatus. If it goes to a court case I’ve said I will go with them to support them.”
Meanwhile, the SNP has urged Prime Minister Theresa May to take EU nationals living and working in the UK “out of limbo” and give them reassurance over their residency status as we move towards 2017.
More than 3.3 million EU nationals currently live and work in the UK, with an estimated 181,000 resident in Scotland.
The party’s spokesperson on Europe, Stephen Gethins, has written to May warning that the UK Government’s failure to provide a guarantee is acting as a deterrent to the top talent the country needs to attract and is forcing families that live and work here to reconsider their future.
Gethins said: “As we move towards 2017 the UK Government must finally end its disgraceful treatment of EU nationals and give them the reassurance that they will be able to continue living and working in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK. It is unacceptable that families who have done us the honour of making Scotland their home have been left in limbo for more than six months now.”
His intervention came after the Home Office told a Dutch woman who has lived in the UK for 24 years and has two children by her British husband to make arrangements to leave the country after she applied for citizenship following the Brexit vote.
Monique Hawkins had previously considered applying for citizenship but decided that it would not confer any privileges beyond her current EU rights. However, after the referendum she changed her mind, fearful that those rights would be diminished after Britain leaves the EU. She first had to apply for a “permanent residency” certificate, which involved an 85-page application form, but the Home Office rejected her application and sent her a letter that took no account of her right to be in the country.
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