The Home Office has ordered the Australian family fighting to remain in Scotland to leave the UK, after they failed to find a job that meets the government’s strict immigration criteria.

Gregg and Kathryn Brain, who emigrated from Australia in 2011 in the belief they could build a life in Scotland on a post-study work visa, were given the news by their MP, Ian Blackford, on Tuesday night.

Blackford said Robert Goodwill, the Home Office immigration minister, had written to him saying the Brains would not get indefinite leave to remain or a further extension to the grace period, after the last extension lapsed on 1 August.



The Brains, who have a seven-year-old son, Lachlan, and are originally from Brisbane, now face imminent deportation.

Goodwill has told the family that officers with the family returns unit of the Home Office’s immigration enforcement department will contact the Brains later this week to organise “a voluntary departure to Australia”. They will discuss how much time and what help and assistance the family need to make this a reality.

Goodwill told Blackford: “I very much hope you will encourage the family to cooperate with this process and to leave the UK voluntarily. Failure to do so would lead to an adverse immigration history, which could preclude the family making a future tier-two job application or even returning to the UK as visitors.”

Gregg Brain said the family had not lost hope of securing a last-minute job offer and winning the right to stay.

“We’re talking to our lawyer about our options going forward. We consider this not to be lost and certainly a hell of a long way from being over,” Brain told the Guardian.

“We’re bitterly disappointed that [the Home Office] haven’t chosen the honourable route and we still hope that they will discover their sense of honour.”

Blackford said he was now racing to see if he could find a job for Kathryn Brain that would satisfy the tier-two criteria she needs to meet, and apply before the deportation process is complete. He is pursuing one potential job offer.

“I will see if I can I identify an opportunity for them. I’m working on something which may result in an offer for her but until that’s in the bag, I don’t want to say too much about that,” he said.

“I’m amazed at the way they have conducted themselves over the last while: they have been remarkably dignified in their response to the whole thing. It must just be awful for them.”

The Brains are now hoping the Home Office will confirm that the deportation threat would be lifted if his wife could find the right job, to give potential employers the confidence that a job offer for Kathryn Brain would not be wasted.

Gregg Brain said Goodwill was guilty of “extraordinary spin” by implying there was a level playing field for all non-EU migrants like them trying to secure work visas in the UK, since the rules affecting the Brains had been changed after their work study visa was granted.

A new pilot scheme for overseas students at four English universities seeking work visas, launched last week, had none of the financial costs facing the Brains, he added. Any employer who wanted to offer Kathryn Brain a job would need to pay up to £3,000 in Home Office and legal fees – costs which would not apply to a UK or EU citizen.

The Brains have been living in Dingwall near Inverness since 2011 after they moved so Kathryn Brain could study at the University of the Highlands and Islands, and under the then post-study work visa system find a job which would allow the family to remain in the UK.

The Brains said they were unaware that the Home Office had announced in March 2011, three months before they arrived in the UK, that the post-study work visa system was being scrapped. Ministers had indicated it would be scrapped in December 2010, the Home Office said.

The Brains say they only discovered it had been withdrawn in 2012, after they had settled in Dingwall. After Kathryn Brain’s degree course ended last year, they tried but failed to find a job for her which met the correct criteria.

They are furious that they are now being forced to leave, arguing that it is a breach of faith by the UK government to cancel that visa system retrospectively.

One potential job offer at a local distillery was withdrawn late last month, after the distillery owner feared he was breaking the law by not opening the job up to all applicants.

In his letter to Blackford, Goodwill said: “My officials and I have looked carefully at the family’s case to see whether there are any exceptional considerations which would justify granting them leave outside the immigration rules, as you suggest.

“There is no fundamental difference between their circumstances and that of any other individuals who came to the UK on a temporary study visa. If they wish to remain to work, then they must make a tier-two application to do so.”

Goodwill added: “There was no breach of faith in relation to the closure of the tier-one (post-study work) route. It was not an entitlement of the student visa Kathryn Brain originally applied for, which was for a time-limited period of study only.

“The tier-one (post-study work) category was closed because too many applicants were not using the student route primarily to gain a world-class education at our universities, but merely as a means to the end of living and working in the UK.”

He added: “Although the family have said they were unaware of the announcement until 2012, they have still had a number of years in which to search and apply for jobs which would qualify under tier two.

“I would also observe that tier one (post-study work) never conferred a long-term right to stay in the UK. Even when the route was open, applicants needed to find a job that would qualify under tier two before the end of the two years in the route.”