Woman can remain in UK after deportation fears

A woman who faced deportation after living in the UK for 22 years has been told she can remain in the country.

Amika Brown, 41, from Luton, previously said she felt "traumatised" when the Home Office said it was considering removing her citizenship on the grounds it had been obtained under a false identity.

Mrs Brown married for the second time in 2019, about two weeks after being naturalised as a British citizen and getting a British passport.

The Home Office has since said Mrs Brown can stay in the country, but she said the whole process had been a "huge disappointment".

"I am relieved but I notice there is no apology," she explained.

"An apology would have made it easier to digest.

"The letter basically said 'carry on with your life' - it was very brief."

Mrs Brown received the first Home Office letter last month that said it had reason to believe her citizenship was "obtained as a result of fraud" and she could be sent back to her native Jamaica.

She emailed the department with her birth certificate to confirm her name and the fact she was born in 1982 as opposed to 1979, which the letter claimed.

She also sent her brother's birth certificate that showed he was born in 1979, to prove they had her date of birth wrong and they could not both have been born "within three months" of each other.

On Friday the Home Office said it had considered her evidence and had decided "not to deprive" her of her citizenship "because your case does not fall within our policy".

"The whole process has been a huge disappointment from start to finish - not what you would expect from a government," Mrs Brown said.

"It was a case of guilty until proven innocent and it should be the other way round."

A spokesperson for the Home Office previously said it had a "long-standing position" not to comment on individual cases.

Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.