The Home Office has revealed why it has refused an Angus woman’s visa application and told her to leave the UK.
Angela Faye Smith, 46, is now living illegally in Arbroath after her latest visa application was denied by the Home Office.
The Angus Council worker, originally from America, would have to leave her 13-year-old daughter Ceilidh, a fully-fledged UK citizen, behind.
Angela, who first came to Angus in the late 1980s and has lived in Arbroath since 2007, applied for residency on the basis that she is Ceilidh’s primary carer.
The application was refused as the Home Office said there was no reason why Ceilidh could not remain in the UK with Angela’s ex-husband, who still lives locally.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “All applications are considered on their individual merits and in line with the immigration rules.”
The Home Office considered Angela’s application under European law, with reference to the 2009 case of Gerardo Ruiz Zambrano versus the Belgian citizenship bureau.
Two Colombian national parents of Belgian children successfully challenged the administrative decision to reject their continued right of residence in Belgium.
Their departure from Belgium would have meant that, in practice, their Belgian children would also have been obliged to leave the EU.
However, the Court of Appeal in the UK has previously decided the Ruiz Zambrano principle only applies where the EU citizen would be forced to leave the EU, and not merely where quality of life would be diminished.
Angela said she is not prepared to leave and admits she cannot imagine a life outwith the town she’s grown to love.
She said: “She (Ceilidh) can’t come with me because we’d have a fight from her father because he has visitation rights.
“She is also a British citizen and she doesn’t have an American passport. I can’t take her away from everything she knows.
“Neither of us has a life in America but we have a life here in Arbroath. I love Arbroath. I’m a community-based person. It is who I am,” continued Angela.
“But that’s got nothing to do with it. I’m her sole provider and they are telling me to leave her?
“I will not do it. I am her mother.”