Just 24 hours after the Guardian article was published, the Home Office granted the baby’s visa and informed his mother, Tiffany Ellis – who has indefinite leave to remain in the UK, where she has lived since the age of eight – that it was ready for immediate collection. Ellis said she was so happy when she got a call from a Home Office official on Tuesday to let her know she could get her baby’s visa straight away that she “lay on the floor and cried”. “I called my husband who was at work to tell him the news and he cried too. The Home Office decision is long overdue. I’ll take the first flight home I can. I can’t wait to hug my husband and my daughter.” Tiffany jetted off to Jamaica to marry her partner Zaren Ellis, 38, in January 2020, accompanied by their daughter Xianna, now five. The couple lives in London. The lockdown that followed Tiffany, 28, becoming pregnant and suffering from constant vomiting – hyperemesis gravidarum – so severe she could not leave the house had delayed the family’s return to the UK. Tiffany gave birth to Xien on April 30 last year in Jamaica and has been trying to get back to the UK ever since. She applied for a visa for the baby, but last December the Home Office rejected it, saying: “You are currently living and studying with your mother in Jamaica.” Officials wrote that the decision is “justified by the need to maintain effective immigration and border control” and will not have “unreasonably harsh consequences.” The denial letter added that the baby’s life can go on as he is now in Jamaica with financial support from his mother in the UK. The Ministry of Home Affairs rejected Xien’s visa application on December 22, when he was almost eight months old. Zaren felt he had to return to London last December so Xianna could go to school. They had to leave Tiffany and Xien in Jamaica because of a visa refusal by the Home Office. Father and daughter are at the family home in London, desperate to be reunited with Tiffany and Xien. Karen Doyle, of the Movement For Justice, which supported the family, welcomed the Home Office’s decision to grant Sien a visa: “These reckless inhumane decisions by the Home Office must stop,” she said. Home Office sources previously said the documents they requested were sent in unreadable form. A spokesman previously said: “Following further evidence coming to light, we have agreed to review this application in May. We await additional information and once we receive it, we will carefully consider the application.” On Tuesday a Home Office spokesman said: “We are in contact with Ms Ellis and have now issued the child’s visa.”
