The two adopted children of an American NHS specialist and his British wife, who were repeatedly refused entry to the UK, have been granted visas after the Guardian highlighted their plight.

Patrick Thies, an orthopaedic physician assistant, had returned to the US with his sons and was within days of giving up his job in Birmingham, despite the NHS spending £20,000 and nine months recruiting him.



But the sudden turnaround by the Home Office, which began almost immediately after their situation was publicised, means the whole family can live in the UK and Thies will not have to give up his position.

His wife, Gillian Thies, said: “When I heard a few hours ago that my sons had been granted the visas, I shook uncontrollably for ages. Then I burst into tears and cried for a long time, which I haven’t let myself do up to now because I’ve been trying to keep everything together.

“Now I’m feeling extremely relieved but shortly, I expect, I will start feeling very angry about all the wasted time, money and the stupidity of this whole situation. I’m British, my husband has a visa, but it’s taken 17 months and cost £20,000 to get my children here. It’s unbelievable, but it happened.”

The family had repeatedly failed to persuade the Home Office to give their two adopted sons, Benjamin and Edward, aged 10 and 12, permission to live in the UK. They were stopped at Heathrow in March 2016 and the two boys refused entry, although the couple’s third biological child was allowed into the country, leaving the family stranded on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

But within three days of the Guardian story, Gillian Thies received an email from Mark Hayman, the UK entry clearance manager at the Home Office visas and immigration (UKVI) department, asking her which kind of visa the family preferred their children to have: a settlement visa or a tier two dependant visa.

The Home Office had previously refused the Thies family both visas, but when Gillian Thies asked for the former, Hayman replied within three hours saying the request was being considered.



“Then it all went surreal again,” she said. A week later, on Tuesday 15 August, she received an automated email saying a decision on the visas had been made, but it was in a letter being posted to the family home in Oregon and nobody would explain what the outcome was.



“This time when I contacted the UKVI asking for the decision, I got no reply,” Gillian Thies said. “They refused to tell my MP either. They claimed they’d also sent a letter to Minaar, the lawyer who had handled our original application, although he was no longer working for us or involved in any way. But when I rang Minaar, he said he hadn’t been sent a letter and nor did he expect to be.



“The old madness had reared its head again. They told us there was a decision, but refused to tell us what it was or put it in an email. They said we had to wait for their letter to arrive in Oregon, which it still hasn’t.”

After three days, Hayman replied to Gillian Thies’s email, apologising for the lack of information. “I’ve been out of the office quite a bit for the last couple of days,” he said, confirming that the applications had been approved.

“It seems that unless you have a personal contact at the Home Office, you get sucked into a mad, meaningless system that is totally illogical,” she said. “As soon as we lost contact with Hayman, the Home Office’s system sent it all spiralling off again.”

The family are waiting for their passports to arrive in Oregon before they can book plane tickets for Thies and the boys. “It’s been five weeks today since they left,” Gillian Thies said. “I’ve never been away from my boys for more than three days. It’s been unbelievable.”

• This article was amended on 18 August 2017. An earlier version said Patrick Thies was an orthopaedic surgeon. This has been corrected to physician assistant.

