Migration chiefs kick Canadian vet out of Scotland
A CANADIAN who spent four years and £100,000 qualifying as a vet in Scotland has been sent back to her home country by immigration chiefs.
Carmen Bell, 31, said she was heartbroken to be expelled because she had two job offers in the UK and planned to settle with her Scots partner.
She is the latest example of a hard-working migrant from a ‘kith and kin’ nation to fall foul of a UK immigration policy that recently saw an Albanian double murderer granted legal aid in his fight to avoid deportation.
Dr Bell’s MP said it was ‘ridiculous’ to deport her because she was ‘exactly the type of person we need to retain’.
Her case follows the treatment of Australians Gregg and Kathryn Brain and their seven-yearold son. They moved to the Highlands after being enticed by a Scottish Government advertising campaign to bring fresh blood to rural areas, only to face a fight against deportation.
Days before they were due to go back to Australia, they were given more time to plead their case after arguing their son’s Gaelic education would suffer.
Canadians Jason and Christy Zielsdorf and their five children put down roots in Scotland and opened a shop in Laggan, Inverness-shire, but were then told to leave after eight years.
The family were informed they had failed to meet the criteria needed for a business visa. Instead of employing two fulltime workers for 12 months, they could only afford to take on one.
Meanwhile, Albanian double murderer Saliman Barci is being given legal aid to fund his battle to stay in Britain despite being caught selling cocaine here, posing as a refugee and living rent-free in a £560-a-month, fourbedroom housing association home with nearly £2,000 a month in benefits on top.
Dr Bell came to Britain on a student visa in 2011 and spent four years gaining her veterinary medicine degree at the Royal School of Veterinary Studies in Edinburgh.
But when she applied for a ‘tiertwo’ visa that would allow her to work and obtained two job offers, the Home Office sent her home after a seven-month bureaucratic nightmare.
She said: ‘All in all, the United Kingdom is my home and I feel I am being treated unfairly and forced to leave my home.
‘My partner and our pets are here and we have plans to buy a house and have a future here. I’m a hard-working, upstanding member of society who has paid over £100,000 to obtain my veterinary degree here. Veterinary surgeons are in high demand in this country and I’ve spent thousands more on visa applications just trying to start my first day of work.’
Her first job offer, from a surgery in Perthshire that was sponsoring her visa application, was approved by the Home Office but later withdrawn by the surMP
‘Exactly the type of person we need’ ‘I’m being forced to leave my home’
gery because the position was no longer vacant.
She then obtained a second sponsor from a surgery in Newton Abbot, Devon, but says the Home Office delayed approving the paperwork for five months – and then told her she did not qualify after all.
Dr Bell said that the first application cost her £15,000 including travel expenses, and the second £2,500.
Her Perth and North Perthshire Pete Wishart said: ‘Kicking out the likes of Carmen, when she is so determined to live and work here, helps absolutely no one.
‘Veterinarians are in short supply and we have invested in training Carmen to the highest standard, only for the UK Government to boot her out as she tries to secure employment.’
Dr Bell has now returned to Alberta to live with her parents.
Her graphic designer partner Colin Millar, from Grandtully, Perthshire, said: ‘We have lost everything we were working towards. We were all set to start our life… now it has all fallen through, leaving us with a mountain of debt that we are trying to pay off. We have been strangled in government red tape.’
Last night, the Home Office said: ‘All visa applications are carefully considered on their individual merits, in line with the UK immigration rules and based on evidence provided by the applicant. It is the individual’s responsibility to meet the criteria of the visa they apply for.’