Please Help Me Stay with My Family

Hello

My name is Marie Madrid and I have been living in the UK since I first moved here in 2006 as a 16 year old student. Between that time and now, I have had to apply for a visa to stay here every 2-3 years, with each application costing more and more than the last. I am sure you may have heard of lots of people like me, and I promise you a lot of those stories aren’t true - I have never received benefits nor will I ever because I don’t need them and I need to prove I can live without them. My husband and I even scrimped and saved every penny to buy our own home in 2019, and in this day and age, not an easy task.

I am now 33, and in almost 20 years I basically spent more than half my life here, eventually finding my own little family. My husband (who is Welsh and therefore British) and I married in 2020 and we had our son in 2022 (also British by birth right). As you can imagine, the rising cost of living on top of nursery fees have set us back quite a lot but we manage to persevere until this latest application.

Thanks to changes in visa ruling, when I should have been eligible for Indefinite Leave to Remain this year, this has now been pushed back to at least 2026. Now in order to continue living here until I do qualify to stay permanently, I have to again apply for a normal residence Visa with an expiry date. I would have had the funds, had it not been for the NHS surcharge I have to pay for, despite working there myself.

With rounded figures, this is what I am supposed to pay for:

-Solicitor Fees: £1200

-Application Form: £1050

-NHS Surchage: £2600 (no discounts or waivers for foreign members of staff, according to the visa rules)

-Biometrics: £150

-Any extras I may be fortunate to receive will go towards our family bills that we are struggling to keep up with this month.

If you have read this far and have it in your heart to donate, even as little as £1, I do appreciate it. Please don’t worry if you can’t donate, sharing as far and wide as possible is helpful.

Setting up this GoFundMe was my very last resort as I always try to do these sort of things without any help, but now that I have a family, I am going to do whatever it takes to stay here with them, and I thank everyone who can help make that happen for a humble NHS worker who wants nothing more than to live the rest of her life serving the British Public and watching her baby grow up with her husband by her side. Thank you.