EDINBURGH (Reuters) - An Australian family facing deportation from the Scottish Highlands after a change in visa rules are now in limbo, waiting to hear from the British government whether they will be given more time to meet visa requirements.
Gregg and Kathryn Brain, who moved to Scotland in 2011 with their son Lachlan, are hoping for a job offer or a new extension to their visa after the last one expired at midnight on Monday.
Their case has attracted a huge outpouring of sympathy in Scotland, where Kathryn Brain was previously given permission to study and then work as part of a now defunct British government-backed scheme to shore up the Highlands' ageing and shrinking population.
"They simply don't know if there will be a knock on the door at some point and they will be removed," Ian Blackford, the lawmaker for Dingwall where the Brains live, told Reuters.
"If that is the route they (Britain's interior ministry) want to go down, well, we just don't know, we're in their hands," he said, adding that he had yet to receive a reply to two letters sent to British Immigration Minister Robert Goodwill's office in the last 24 hours.
Lachlan Brain, 7, has learnt the ancient Scottish language Gaelic and Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon made a personal appeal to the interior ministry in London on the family's behalf in May.
The Brains argue that their predicament is unfair because the rules were changed after their arrival.