SNP MPs are planning to maintain pressure on the Home Office over UK immigration policy, despite one of them expressing disappointment at the outcome of a meeting with the Immigration Minister.
Glasgow Central MP Alison Thewliss met Robert Goodwill yesterday to challenge what she said were dramatic restrictions on the number of UK visas being issued to Iranians.
Among her immigration caseload is an Iranian man who lives in Glasgow who has been trying for almost 10 years to get a visa for his wife in Iran, and a family who have been trying since May last year for a visa to allow their child’s grandmother to visit them from the country.
Thewliss said: “This man and his wife have been separated since 2007 when they first tried to get her visa. Their children are growing up and all he can do is visit them when he can take time off work for holidays.
“I’m very disappointed that there was no progress from my meeting with the minister.”
A Home Office spokesperson previously told The National: “We are currently experiencing high levels of demand from UK visa applicants in Iran.”
Drew Hendry, MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, is due to meet Goodwill next week to discuss two constituency cases he is handling.
These are that of the Zielsdorf family, whose visa extension was refused despite them having invested their life savings in a lifeline shop in the Highland village of Laggan; and that of Scott Johnson, an American married to a Scot with whom he has a Scottish-born daughter, who has also been refused leave to remain in the Highlands.Johnson’s case was heard at an immigration tribunal in Glasgow on December 12, when he was told a decision would be reached within 14 days.
By last night he had still heard nothing from the tribunal.
“This is an absolute disgrace,” said the MP. “We have said continually that the system doesn’t work and there is no better illustration than people being left in limbo like this.”
In Inverness, Russell and Ellen Felber have also been left in limbo after their visa extension was refused following a change in the rules.
They are from New York and have spent close to £400,000 over almost six years, turning the Torridon Guest House in the city into an award-winning establishment.
The week before Christmas they were given 30 days’ notice to quit the UK.
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