A HIGHLAND MP is pledging to highlight the injustice of immigrants who are valuable members of Scottish society and who are stuck in “limbo” because they have been denied visas – despite having lived here for years.

Dr Paul Monaghan was speaking to The National as one of his constituents – American Scott Johnson, who has a Scottish wife and daughter and lives in the Highlands – revealed that he is planning to appeal to a first tier tribunal after his appeal for leave to remain here was rejected.

Late last year, we revealed that almost 14,000 foreign nationals were living in limbo in Scotland waiting for the UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) division of the Home Office to tell them if they can stay. Figures obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Home Office showed that on March 31, the number of temporary migration applications pending in Scotland was 8,065, and the number of permanent applications stood at 5,915.

Monaghan, the MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, said: “Myself and my colleagues have been talking about this for some time now, and we need to identify all of these cases and pool our resources and make it public just how widespread the UK Government’s failures are reaching into Scottish society – that’s the issue.

“It’s not an isolated case – I know that the [Kathryn, Gregg and Lachlan] Brains for example received a lot of attention, but they were just one family amongst what is now clearly very many families. And the public need to understand the scale of the problem here and public support needs to get behind not just the families who are experiencing difficulties, but people need to get behind politicians to make it clear to the UK Government that this is completely unacceptable and not what we want to happen in Scotland.”

Monaghan said he agreed with the course of action Johnson was taking, but there were many other cases that should also be considered. He said: “EU nationals are coming under pressure to secure their position by applying for permanent residency or leave to remain and the UK Government on a weekly basis changes the rules to make it more and more difficult for them.

“They are increasing the costs of the application process, so for example a family of four from let’s say the Netherlands, who have lived in Scotland for 20 years, who now feel that they have to apply for right to remain are having to pay £1,700 per person for the application – there aren’t many families who have that kind of money to spend on that. It’s a dreadful scenario that we’re now living through and it’s causing a lot of people a great deal of worry and stress. And it is all entirely avoidable.”