Brain family facing deportation after UK visa expires on Tuesday

TIME is nearly up for an Australian family who moved to a remote Scottish village for the quiet life but found themselves at the centre of an immigration war.

Gregg and Kathryn Brain and their son Lachlan moved to remote Northern Scotland in 2011. Picture: Facebook

TIME is running out for an Australian family caught in the crossfire of a European-wide debate on immigration as their visas are set to expire on Tuesday.

Australians Gregg and Kathryn Brain and their seven-year-old son Lachlan have become the focus of international media and an online petition during their battle with the UK government over their right to remain living in remote northern Scotland.

The family moved to Dingwall in 2011 under a Highland Homecoming Plan to boost the economy and encourage people to settle in the sparsely populated area.

However rather than receive the post-study work visa they expected, the UK government changed the rules meaning they had to apply under a Tier 2 visa system which requires a job offer based on a financial threshold.

Now with less than 24 hours to go until their right to remain in the UK expires, the family are yet to receive word on their fate.

Gregg Brain said they were “still hopeful for a positive outcome” in the frustrating scenario that has seen them meet Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon and be name-checked in UK parliament by Immigration Minister James Brokenshire.

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - MAY 26: Gregg, Kathryn and Lachlan Brain meet Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at the Scottish Parliament garden lobby on May 26, 2016 in Edinburgh, Scotland. and Kathryn Brain, an Australian couple with Scottish ancestry, and their seven year old son Lachlan are facing deportation after the visa they arrived on was retrospectively cancelled by the Home Office. They arrived in 2011 under The Highland Homecoming Initiative run by the Scottish Government and backed by the Home Office to help re-populate the Highlands but the scheme was shut by the Home Office in 2012. The Brain family have settled in Dingwall where Lachlan is a pupil at the local Gaelic-speaking primary school. Their community, councillors and MSP's have rallied round in support of their bid to stay in the Highlands. .(Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Mr Brain said Mr Brokenshire’s comments in parliament last Thursday were “sad and misleading” as the MP omitted to mention the family had been issued their visas in 2010 — before the government announced the scheme would be discontinued in March 2011.

“My personal view is that as a matter of natural justice, if you have encouraged people to come under a set of rules … you should be allowing them to continue along original path that was promised,” Mr Brain said.

“It was quite obvious he had been very extraordinarily briefed so I find it hard to believe the omission was an oversight.”

The couple are hoping for a resolution “early this week”.

“We can only hope that common sense will prevail and we’re simply given the opportunity we were promised in the first place,” Mr Brain said.

The “Kafkaesque” case has become a major talking point in the UK where immigration has come into sharp focus amid the EU referendum debate.

Last week, official figures revealed net migration of more than 330,000 in 2015 making it the second highest year on record, sparking cries that Britain is unable to control its population while part of the EU which allows free movement for citizens.

The Brains want the UK Home Office to honour the terms of the visa that saw them uproot from their lives in Australia in 2011 in favour of a life in remote Dingwall.

The family enrolled their son, Lachlan, in a Gaelic-speaking school after first falling in love with the place on holiday. They have also spent more than $70,000 on university fees while Kathryn studied Scottish history in the area.

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - MAY 26: Gregg, Kathryn and Lachlan Brain meet Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at the Scottish Parliament garden lobby on May 26, 2016 in Edinburgh, Scotland. and Kathryn Brain, an Australian couple with Scottish ancestry, and their seven year old son Lachlan are facing deportation after the visa they arrived on was retrospectively cancelled by the Home Office. They arrived in 2011 under The Highland Homecoming Initiative run by the Scottish Government and backed by the Home Office to help re-populate the Highlands but the scheme was shut by the Home Office in 2012. The Brain family have settled in Dingwall where Lachlan is a pupil at the local Gaelic-speaking primary school. Their community, councillors and MSP's have rallied round in support of their bid to stay in the Highlands. .(Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

At present, both Kathryn and Gregg have job offers they are unable to accept because they don’t have the right to work.

They have been evicted from their flat by a landlord who did not want to take the legal risk of renting to them and are surviving off donations from their local church while a crowd-funding campaign has been set up online.

“We’re very fortunate to be in a congregation of people who are extraordinarily generous ... other friends have started crowd-funding pages, we’ve just been very fortunate,” Mr Brain said.

Local MP Ian Blackford has been campaigning on their behalf and last week they met with Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon over the issue.

Mr Blackford said the government should honour the commitment it made in 2011 and has so far taken “retrospective action to deny the rights that this family would have been granted under that legislation”.

Mr Brokenshire has said the family were not at “immediate risk” of deportation and were able to apply under the tier 2 system. He said he had already extended conditions for them twice and would consider new evidence of Mrs Brain’s job offer in their case.

The family’s main worry if forced to return to Australia is how it would impact their son Lachlan who speaks English but has not been schooled in the language and could be more than two years behind his peers.

“It would tear the foundations out from under his world to some degree which is why we’re fighting so hard,” Mr Brain said.

He claimed the situation has descended into “Kafkaesque realms of absurdity” in which the immigration policy has had the opposite effect of what is intended.

“Here we have a family who are willing to linguistically and culturally assimilate, pay our own way. We’re working to live in a sparsely populated and economically depressed area. You would think we would be the gold standard. It that is what the application of the policy results in then surely the policy should be set aside.”

Follow the Brain family case on Facebook.