A US couple ordered back to America by Amber Rudd yesterday took their fight to stay in the Highlands to the highest civil court in the land.
Russell and Ellen Felber have ploughed £300,000 into the north economy and run a successful guest house in Inverness for six years.
But they were ordered to leave the country over a change in visa rules regarding the number of staff they should employ.
Their lawyer pleaded with a judge to overturn the Home Office decision at the Court of Session in Edinburgh yesterday – just hours after another family, the Zielsdorfs, were forced to leave their Highland home and business for the last time in taxis headed for a flight to Canada.
On behalf of the Felbers, Advocate Alan Caskie told judge Lady Carmichael that the Home Secretary should allow New Yorkers the Felbers to remain in Inverness.
He told how the Felbers came to Scotland in 2011 on an entrepreneur visa, having fallen in love with the Highlands during holidays here.
They spent hundreds of thousands of pounds renovating a guest house in the city which had attracted rave reviews and awards.
However, the court heard that the Home Secretary decided not to grant them indefinite leave to remain in the UK last year.
The politician made the decision after applying rules which were made in 2014 regarding the numbers of employees that people on entrepreneur visas had to apply.
The new rules which were applied by Ms Rudd were made following a decision to extend the Felbers’ visas.
The court heard that the couple had followed the requirements set out in the old rules dictating entrepreneur visas.
Yesterday, Mr Caskie argued that the Home Secretary shouldn’t have applied the new 2014 rules when considering the application made by the Felbers to indefinitely remain in the UK.
He told the court that the system was “unfair”, complicated and “Byzantine”.
Mr Felber sat in the public benches of the court as his advocate argued his case.
The Felbers spent £300,000 buying the award-winning Torridon guest house and are understood to have invested another £100,000 renovating the property.
The couple were advised that as part of their Visa into the UK, the government required them to either employ two full time employees for 12 months or one employee for 24 months. They chose the latter.
However, when they applied for leave to remain in the United Kingdom in early 2016, the Home Office refused to grant the application because the rules had changed.
And in December 2016, Mr Felber, 59, and Mrs Felber, 53, received a letter from from the Home Office telling them they had 30 days to leave the United Kingdom.
Chris Pirie, the advocate representing the Home Office, argued that the decision was lawful.
Lady Carmichael told the lawyers that she would issue her decision in a written judgement in the near future.
