At last - mum is told she can stay in UK (From Swindon Advertiser)

At last - mum is told she can stay in UK

9:00am Monday 11th March 2013 in News

A CRICKLADE couple and their nine-month old baby who faced being separated due to blunders at the UK Border Agency have finally been told they can stay together in Britain.

Mark Cammack, 40, his Philippino wife Jorlie, 26, and their son Colin have endured more than three months of uncertainty but at last they have received the good news they had been waiting for.

The family, of Saxon Close, had received a letter from the UKBA in December ordering Jorlie, who is originally from General Santos City in the Philippines to leave the country.

Jorlie had applied for leave to remain, which would allow a two year extension to her initial six month visa, but UKBA refused and said she had applied too late, failed to provide a copy of an English language test and Colin’s birth certificate.

But the couple said they had supplied the required documentation on four separate occasions and feared the agency had lost it. The family’s ordeal began shortly before it came to light that the agency was experiencing a backlog of more than 16,000 applications from migrants seeking permission to stay in Britain.

Last week, Mark received an email from UKBA to inform him that Jorlie was allowed to stay in the UK, as well as an apology for the distress that had been caused.

And yesterday, the family were celebrating the news on Jorlie’s first ever Mother’s Day.

“I am just so pleased and so happy because it means I can stay with my son and my husband – it is the perfect way to celebrate Mother’s Day,” she said.

“At the moment we are living with my mother-in-law but now we know that I can stay we can start making our own plans for the future, and we can get our very own place together. Before, it had always been ‘what if, what if’ but now we have a focus and we can really make a life together.

“I would have been absolutely devastated if I had been told to leave – I couldn’t go back to the Philippines while my son and my husband were living here, I would have been so sad.”

HGV driver Mark, who met Jorlie on an internet dating site before the couple married at Swindon Register Office over a year ago, said: “It is just such a huge relief. We are both just so much happier now. We received an email completely out of the blue. We had just been sitting here waiting and worrying for months.

“The email said that unfortunately the birth certificate had been misplaced and sent to the wrong department but they were happy to confirm that the application has been granted and she is able to remain in the UK.

“It just amazes me when you send important documents off to the UK Border Agency with the correct address on it, that it can end up in completely the wrong place. It has been several months of worrying, but we are very pleased now.”

In the email sent to the family from the UKBA, a spokesperson said: “Please accept our sincere apologies in the delay in processing your application. Your documentation was unfortunately misplaced and sent to the wrong department.”