With Theresa May’s renewed commitment on Monday to reduce immigration to “sustainable levels,” it is difficult not to recall the sheer dejection in Jason Zielsdorf’s voice a couple of weeks ago.
He and his wide Christy had taken over the local shop in Laggan, investing nearly £300,000 expanding the enterprise to include a cafe and holiday-letting. But after nine years they and their five children were being sent back to Canada, because their application to remain had failed several Home Office tests for a business visa.
Mr Zielsdorf lamented that they were just "collateral damage" in the immigration debate which has been raging in England; victims in the Home Office's campaign to get net migration figures down. "We are the low hanging fruit, the easy targets," he told the Herald.
Originally from Calgary, he had no family left there, so didn’t know where they were going to go.
He had hoped there might be a last minute breakthrough. Last year an Australian couple and their seven-year-old son looked as though they would have to leave their home in Dingwall and be forced to return to Australia. But after much local campaigning and political lobbying, the Home Office granted them leave to remain, following a job offer satisfying visa requirements.
But there was no such reprieve for the Zielsdorfs and they flew to Canada last week.
Their plight made headlines right across that country. The Montreal Gazette’s was –“ 'We're just going to have to start over'; Canadian family loses fight to stay in Scotland." The story ran in papers all the way out west to Vancouver.”
Now an American couple who run a guest house in Inverness, are facing the same fate. Russell and Ellen Felber from New York took their case to the Court of Session. They had fallen in love with the Highlands and moved here in 2011 on an entrepreneur visa, investing considerably in their new business.
One of the requirements had been they employ two people for 12 months or one person for 24 months, and they had chosen the latter. However the Home Office changed the regulations in 2014 and when they applied for leave to remain last year they were told they had 30 days to leave the UK.
Their advocate told judge Lady Carmichael last week that the rules being applied by Home Secretary Amber Rudd were unfair and Byzantine, and that their application should be considered in the context of those that applied when they decided to build their lives here.
Obviously there have to be immigration regulations. But when Scotland needs more skilled and enterprising people, it is difficult to counter Mr Zielsdorf’s low hanging fruit argument. A regional immigration policy similar to the Canadian Provinces would clearly help.
But as worrying as these Highland cases are, what is truly troubling is that they give us just the slightest hint of the utter despair felt by those who arrive to escape violence, destitution or worse, only to find the door closing.
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