A Canadian family of seven are being told they must leave the country - despite owning a popular business in the Highlands into which they've invested £200,000.

Jason Zielsdorf, his wife Christy and their five children run the only shop in Laggan, Invernessshire. There, locals can buy anything from coal to cones - and even stop for a coffee.

They have poured their hearts into their adopted home - but the dream life they had built in Scotland for the past eight years has now come crashing down around them.

Jason and Christy Zielsdorf, and their five children, Lochlan, 15, Ariana, 13, Aelwyn, 10, Bryn, nine, and Kiernach, five, who are originally from Calgary in Canada and now run the only shop in Laggan, Invernessshire, face being deported

Despite having invested £200,000 in the business and created a café alongside the shop, which was known to millions of viewers of the BBC One series Monarch of the Glen as McKechnie’s, the family failed to meet the criteria for a business visa.

Their crime? Instead of employing two full-time workers for 12 months, they could only afford one.

In February, they were given their marching orders and told they had four months to sell up and book flights back to Canada.

This week, another family living in the Highlands narrowly escaped being deported. Days before they were due to go back to Australia, Gregg and Kathryn Brain have been given more time after arguing their son Lachlan's Gaelic education would suffer.

Both families have learnt the hard way of the deep flaws in the UK immigration system.

While dangerous criminals are using legal aid to mount expensive Home Office appeals, the Zielsdorfs have been forced to search for a buyer for the shop that was supposed to be their future.

The fact their youngest child Kiernach, now five, was born in Scotland counts for nothing.

Mr Zielsdorf has invested £200,000 in the family business and created a café alongside the shop

The law has no consideration for their 15-year-old son Lochlan, who will have to leave his shinty team; or the church congregation which will be one family down come Sunday service.

'We're being kicked out by next month,' Mr Zielsdorf says. 'My struggle is that I haven't sold the shop yet. All our finances, everything, is wrapped up in that business. I'm not in a job where I can just quit and leave and pack up a few belongings and get out. I have an investment in this country that I have to somehow divest myself of without bankrupting my family and my family's future.'

They been given until Friday to provide the Home Office with proof they have booked flights to leave the UK. But without money to pay for the tickets, Mr Zielsdorf is afraid of what looms ahead.

'I don't know what will happen,' he says. 'Being rounded up and taken to a deportation centre is my best guess. It's grim. We're doing the work, but I'm afraid it won't happen in time.

'I'm really concerned about my children. Do they round us up in separate vehicles? Will they separate me from my children? It might be the Government, but who are they? They are not my children's parents. I am their parents. I'm doing my best for them.'

Days before they were due to go back to Australia, Gregg and Kathryn Brain were given more time after arguing their son Lachlan's Gaelic education would suffer if they had to leave Scotland

When the family moved to Scotland, Mr Zielsdorf was studying the theological interpretation of scripture at St Andrews University. After he graduated, they decided to stay in Scotland and built up a business in the Highlands.

'My eldest has been here half his life, he is 15 now,' he says. 'My children don't know what it means to live in Canada. They have visited it only twice since we came here, so it is completely new for them. I don't even know if we will go back to Canada. We don't have a life there.'

It is absurd that a family with so much to offer are being ordered to leave. The Highlands have well documented issues with ageing populations; while small villages continue to suffer from the strain of losing young people and families to the cities.

I have an investment in this country that I have to somehow divest myself of without bankrupting my family and my family's future Jason Zielsdorf

It is even more ridiculous given the efforts being made to stop convicted criminals being deported - at taxpayers' expense.

Earlier this year, an Iraqi serial child sex offender won the right to stay in Scotland, despite having assaulted three 14-year-old girls in a swimming pool. Howri Hamad Garib was found guilty of indecent assault in 2004. He was placed on the Sex Offenders Register and banned from pools.

In 2008, then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith served him with a deportation order. But he launched a taxpayer-funded appeal.

In January this year, the Home Office decided it will have to let Garib stay - because technically his crimes were not sufficiently serious to merit deporting him.

It is not the first time taxpayers' money has been used to fight deportation orders for foreign criminals. It is estimated £100,000 was spent trying to keep a convicted killer from Albania in the country. Fatjon Kapri was finally deported after a four-year battle.

Even convicted Al Qaeda terrorist Baghdad Meziane was allowed to remain in Britain. He was convicted of raising money for the terrorist organisation and sentenced to 11 years in jail.

After being released five years early, he went back to his life in Leicester instead of returning to Algeria, despite the judge at his trial recommending deportation.

The Brains meet Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon last week in Edinburgh

One-legged Albanian killer Saliman Barci was smuggled into the UK by his wife. The couple posed as Kosovan refugees to gain British citizenship. The 41-year-old has now been granted legal aid to fight extradition, despite having been convicted of the murder of two men in his homeland.

He has spent nearly a year in custody at an immigration removal centre, battling a request to be returned to serve a 25-year sentence.

Meanwhile, hardworking families must fend for themselves in the expensive world of immigration law.

Only days before being deported back to Australia, Mr and Mrs Brain embarked on a media campaign in a last-ditch attempt to stay in Scotland. They even met First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Do they round us up in separate vehicles? Will they separate me from my children? It might be the Government, but who are they? They are not my children's parents. I am their parents. I'm doing my best for them Mr Zielsdorf

Along with seven-year-old Lachlan, they were due to be escorted onto a plane by Home Office officials this coming Tuesday.

'We much prefer quiet anonymity,' Mr Brain said after a day of media interviews, including Alex Salmond's weekly radio phone-in and a spot on BBC breakfast television.

'It's been quite an extraordinary experience.' The great irony is that the family had returned to the home of their ancestors - only to be told four years later to leave.

They worked hard to get to Scotland - and could hardly be accused of being naïve. Indeed, it took years of research and a fresh talent campaign from the Home Office to convince them to sell up and leave Australia in the first place.

They first came to the UK in 2001, spending their tenth wedding anniversary touring Scotland.

Another trip in 2005 cemented their love of the Highland landscape, the birthplace of their great-grandparents. But it was the promise of a poststudy work visa that finally convinced them to take the plunge.

Aimed at enticing fresh blood to rural areas crippled by population decline, the Home Office programme said those coming to Scotland could stay and work for two years after leaving university.

Coupled with a £40million Highland Homecoming PR campaign by the Scottish Government, the Brains were sold.

Having swapped Brisbane in Queensland for Dingwall in Ross-shire, they wasted no time embracing the local culture. Lachlan was enrolled in Gaelic-medium education and Mrs Brain committed herself to the study of Scottish history and archaeology at the University of the Highlands and Islands.

Howri Hamad Garib won the right to stay in Scotland, despite having assaulted three 14-year-old girls in a swimming pool

Mr Brain worked to make ends meet as a full-time legal receptionist. But despite their years of careful planning, and the vigour with which they threw themselves into Highland living, less than a year into the move the rules changed.

In what was billed as a crackdown on abuses of the student visa system, the post-study work visa was scrapped ten months after the Brains arrived in Scotland.

Four years on from what was supposed to have been the start of a new life, Mrs Brain has finished her studies - but hasn't been able to secure a job that meets all the strict visa conditions.

Meanwhile, a role with Highland Council for Mr Brain that would have satisfied Home Office regulations, fell through.

He says: 'We were encouraged to come over here by a Home Office programme which allowed for a two year, post-study work visa.

'That deal was changed after we sold our house and everything we owned and moved across the world to establish ourselves here.

'We've done our part, we have integrated, we have become members of the community. Our message is we simply want the Home Office to live up to their end of the deal.'

After being told they had to leave the country, the family had their passports confiscated and were informed that they no longer had the right to work here.

Mr Brain says the Home Office also threatened to freeze their bank accounts and contact the DVLA to recommend their driving licences be revoked.

He adds: 'The visa refusal letter we got quite expressly stated that we had no right to appeal in the UK. We could only appeal once we got to Australia, which is effectively saying we have to take the punishment before we are allowed to appeal.

'Even criminals aren't given that level of justice in this country. They at least do have the right to appeal.

'I do feel that non-EU nationals, because they will almost exclusively have no right to vote, will almost always fall into the category of easy targets from an immigration perspective.'

The media campaign and public pressure appears to have worked for the Brains. On Thursday, Home Office minister James Brokenshire said the family could submit a new visa application - and no longer faced 'an imminent risk of immediate deportation'.

He added: 'We've not yet received an application from the Brain family to remain - but we will consider any application they make.' It was a welcome victory in what so often seems to be the Alice in Wonderland world of UK immigration policy.

Meanwhile, as one family celebrates, another is still counting down the hours before they get a knock on the door. Only 60 miles away from the Brains, the Zielsdorfs are still trying to find a buyer for their shop.

'We are just the easy targets because we obey the rules,' Mr Zielsdorf says.

'We obey the rules and are trying to live justly by what has been set up before us. We live respectfully.

The Zielsdorf's shop became known to millions of TV viewers as McKechnie’s in the BBC One series Monarch of the Glen (pictured), which aired between 2000 and 2005

'It is a wicked shame that those who flaunt the rules and those who couldn't care less about the culture and the fabric of this place are too difficult to get rid of and they get to stay.'

It is not just the Zielsdorf family who have been left disappointed by the ruling. Villagers now face losing their only shop once again - and saying goodbye to a young family who worked so hard to become part of the community.

'People keep saying to us it is a shame we have to go and they are embarrassed to be British,' Mr Zielsdorf says.

'The situation embarrasses them. I've never had so many apologies outside of Canada - and in Canada we apologise if you step on our feet.'

Looking back at what has happened, his advice for anyone from outside the EU thinking of make a life for themselves in Scotland is to be 'very careful'.

He says: 'If you ever want to be an entrepreneur in this country, there is no grace given for you should you not be able to match the requirements to stay.

'If that happens, you run the risk of losing everything because the Government, by extension, has stolen the whole thing from you.

'I could not tell any person who wanted to come over and get an entrepreneur visa to even bother trying. You risk losing everything.'