A mum is facing the reality of being sent thousands of miles away from her partner and her daughter. Ellie Jones, 27, met her Australian partner Louis in the UK nearly six years ago.
In 2021 they moved to Townsville in Queensland, Australia, and settled there. But now Ellie is facing deportation, along with her son Alfie, from a previous relationship.
Visa issues are the reason and it means she and Alife face being split up from Louis, her daughter Olivia, aged two, and Louis' daughter from a previous relationship with whom she shares custody, Indie, aged seven.
Olivia is able to stay as she has dual-nationality through Louis, while Louis and Indie are both Australian citizens. However Alfie is a British citizen.
The problems have stemmed from Ellie's partner visa, which she said the Australian Department of Home Affairs had refused. She said she had been told she had to leave the country by June 2, or risk being deported.
Customer service manager Ellie told the Liverpool ECHO: "When we got here, we applied for the visa, which was really costly. They said they'd be in touch with more information. It comes in dribs and drabs, they'll ask for certain information to be uploaded.
"They asked for a medical, which cost $1,000 each for me and my son. And then they asked for an international police check for myself and my partner. That came back clear.
"Then they asked for a federal police check in Australia. We uploaded that and then didn't really hear anything from them."
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Further issues arose in January this year, when Ellie needed to come back to Liverpool, where she first met Louis, to visit her mum, who was dying from cancer. However, she was not able to make it back in time.
She said: "In January, I had to get back in touch with them and say my mum had died. She had cancer and I just couldn't get back in time. I had to get back in touch with immigration because they wouldn't let me leave the country on the visa that I was on.
"I had to apply for a new one. I was told I could go back to England and was given 12 months that I could stay for and then I'd have to come back. At no point did they say my federal police check was outstanding."
Ellie added: "On Friday they sent a refusal letter, saying we didn't send federal police checks. I was told my visa would be declined and was told I had 35 days to leave the country or I'd be detained or forcibly removed."
Ellie said she was "devastated" and does not want her family to be broken up.
She said: "If I come back to England, I'll have no home, no job, no income. I'm going to have to leave my daughter in Australia with her father - I don't want to put her through that.
"My son is going to be ripped away from his stepfather and his stepsisters. My daughter is going to be moved away from her mum and her brother.
"My daughter is Australian, my partner is Australian, my stepdaughter is Australian. I pay taxes, I've been working here the whole time.
"We contribute to society and they're just going to do this over a piece of paper, which is completely redundant anyway. If I had actually done anything wrong here, they would have flagged me and they would've deported me regardless."
She added: "We made the choice to come here because my partner has a daughter here. We wanted our family to be together, we'd struggled to make ends meet in England.
"My mum was my real network of support I had. I grew up in foster care my whole life, she was my foster mum."
Ellie and Louis are appealing the visa decision. They are crowd-funding on GoFundMe and have a $3,153 goal to pay for the tribunal costs.
Ellie said: "We've just decided to apply for new federal police checks. They've both come through clear again. It's so disgusting that this is over a piece of paper that states I've never done anything wrong. It's shocking."
The Australian Department of Home Affairs has been contacted for comment.
