EXCLUSIVE: Married Durham academics given 14 days to leave UK
Two Durham University academics face being deported within the next fortnight, Palatinate can reveal.
Dr Ernesto Schwartz-Marín and Dr Arely Cruz-Santiago, a married couple, failed in their appeals for a visa renewal because they had spent too long out of the country conducting humanitarian fieldwork.
The anthropologist and human geographer, whose 10-year-old daughter is also being forced to leave, are both Mexicans who have lived in the UK for years.
The pair spent 270 days between June 2014 and July 2015 in Mexico, working with victims of gang related violence and building a DNA database to help locate the missing.
Under Tier 2 visa guidelines, non-EU migrants in the UK cannot spend more than 180 days outside the country, unless they are “attending to a national or international humanitarian or environmental crisis”.
▻https://www.palatinate.org.uk/exclusive-married-durham-academics-given-14-days-leave-uk