The parents have lived in Nottingham for three years for their studies
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A one-year-old baby was asked to leave the country immediately after her visa application was rejcted by the Home Office. Baby Massah was born in the UK in April 2023 after her parents moved to Nottingham from Jordan for their PhD and Masters degrees.
Mohammad, Massah’s father, moved to the city in 2021 with his wife. After Massah was born at Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham the family left the UK and re-entered using the baby’s Brazilian passport.
The baby, who is a Jordanian and Brazilian citizen, then left the UK again with her mother in January 2024 and re-entered the same month using her Brazilian passport. Her father, who is in the UK on a student visa until October 2025, then decided to apply for his daughter’s visa in March.
On April 10, the family received an email from the Home Office requesting information about Massah’s stay in the UK. This was “promptly” sent over in response, on the same day, says her father. No response was received from the Home Office until May 3 when the family received an email addressed to the baby stating that her application was rejected as it was incomplete/incorrect and she did not have permission to stay in the UK.
The email reads: “We contacted you on 10 April 2024 to tell you that your application was not yet valid. We told you that you needed to provide all missing information within 10 working days of that notification.
“You have not done this and your application has been rejected as invalid. (…) As you do not have permission to stay in the UK you should now leave the country, or you may be removed.”
The electronic correspondence has put the couple “under a lot of stress”, deeply impacting their studies. Her father said: “I’m feeling really stressed out, and it seems like all of my studying is going to waste.
“I’m thinking about taking a year off from my studies due to the depression and stress my family and I have been experiencing. I can’t imagine how I will tell my daughter the story in the future, to explain that the country she was born in considered her an overstay, rejected her application and asked her to leave the country immediately or they would remove her.
“How can we keep our one-year-old without either of us with her? It’s been a very exhausting, stressful, and overwhelming time for our family.”
Following the Home Office’s decision, her father contacted his university, MP, and a legal firm for advice. Ali Alshafei, of Ten Legal, represents the family and said the decision is “grossly unfair” and the Home Office “hasn’t carefully considered this scenario”.
Source:nottinghampost