Hi all

Short version: My husband, Curtis, who has lived and worked in the UK legally for 16 years has unexpectedly lost his right of UK permanent residence through no fault of his own, and has had to return to Canada. We are raising money to pay for ongoing legal costs (over £4k spent so far) as well as new visas to rejoin his family in the UK (approx £15k over 5+ years to obtain permanent residence again). We continue to fight against the Home Office's decision. Our lawyer says the Home Office’s actions are unlawful, unfair and discriminatory.

Long version: As some of you already know, we’ve been having some immigration issues over the last year or so. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, these haven’t been resolved in the way we’d hoped, and Curtis has now lost his right of permanent residence in the UK (after 16 years living here legally) and has had to return to Canada. We are absolutely gutted that it has come to this.

Without boring you with too many gory details, essentially, Curtis was granted permanent residence in the UK in 2014 but after Brexit there was a change of rules which affected us but of which we were unaware. We have now learned that Curtis was supposed to have applied for EU Settled Status some years ago. We weren’t informed about this change of rules and so didn’t know he needed to apply – and we missed the deadline for late applications (by about 2 months)! Anyone who knows me knows I’m very well organised, deadline-driven and something of a control freak, and believe me, if I’d KNOWN about a deadline, I would NOT have missed it, so this irks me intensely. It feels very unjust and unfair. ☹

You may be wondering why EU Settlement stuff has anything to do with a Canadian national married to a Brit and this is a reasonable question – it ultimately comes down to the fact that we entered the UK from Spain 16 years ago and so we were placed on an odd immigration route (which is really biting us in the ass now, quite frankly!)

We have spent thousands already hiring immigration specialist lawyers to try and resolve this situation, but alas, to no avail. In the words of Margaret Thatcher, the Secretary of State is not for turning (I suspect Yvette Cooper won’t like being compared to Maggie, but... tough!). Our immigration lawyer is still continuing with various appeals and pre-action protocol processes as she feels that the Home Office is being 'manifestly unreasonable' by ignoring the fact that Curtis already had a documented right of permanent residence in the UK (which apparently you can only lose if you leave the country for more than two years). She claims that the Home Office is acting unlawfully, unfairly and is essentially discriminating against us (particularly as some people in other categories can still apply for EU settled status). Despite these ongoing processes (which have already been rejected but which our lawyer continues to fight), we were worried about potential removal orders from the Home Office - so Curtis has now left the UK.

If our final appeals fail, we face significant, unplanned-for costs over the next 5 to 10 years trying to get back to the place we are now. Curtis has to effectively start from scratch applying for 2.5 year visas (twice) AGAIN (like we did 16 years ago) before he can apply for permanent residence/indefinite leave to remain AGAIN (like we did 10 years ago). Visa costs are very expensive now. Loss of earnings while he's away is also a worry.

So, I have set up this crowdfunding page to try and raise some funds - we appreciate that times are tough right now for many people, so please excuse this ‘begging message’. All we ask is that you share the link with any networks that you’re aware of that might be sympathetic to our cause...and with any wealthy people you know! ;)

We may also take our story to the Press but mainly to warn others who might be in a similar situation to us (i.e. with permanent residence but unaware of the need to apply for a different status) so if you have any good Press contacts, please let us know.

Many, many thanks.

I also thought I'd share Minnie's (as yet unanswered) message to Sir Keir Starmer that she sent last week, as it sums up the situation nicely, through the eyes of a child:

Dear Sir Keir Starmer

My name is Minnie and I am 11 years old. I am half British, half Canadian. My mummy is British and my Daddy is Canadian - they are married and they have lived here for 16 years. My Daddy was given permanent residence 10 years ago but he has just found out that permanent doesn't mean permanent. He's being sent back to Canada for not knowing he was supposed to apply for a different thing (Mummy says it's called EU Settled Status - I don't know what that means). I don't understand why the government says it's Daddy's fault. When I have to do something, somebody normally tells me to do it. At school, when our dedicated classroom for that lesson has changed, they put a note on the door telling us what the new room is. Why can't the government do that when they change the rules about visas? Why can't they tell people so that they know what they have to do?

I'm very sad about Daddy leaving and he's probably not even going to come back for Christmas. Mummy and Daddy say that they can't even guarantee he'll be back for my birthday in March. Is that fair?

Please can you let my Daddy stay. Permanent means forever and ever. You can't go against the rules of every dictionary in the world.

Hope you can help me. Please.

Yours sincerely

Minnie MacPherson

Thanks, everyone.

PS - If we manage to raise more money than we need to cover our costs, then we plan to donate any additional funds raised to Centrepoint, the Ending Youth Homelessness charity.