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Members of the public have donated more than £ 25,000 since last Friday to cover the legal bill facing activist Emma DeSouza.
Ms. DeSouza, from Magherafelt, Co Derry, and her US-born husband, Jake, fought a lengthy legal battle to allow her to remain in Northern Ireland without compromising her right to identify herself as an Irish citizen.
The UK Home Office had rejected the couple’s application on the grounds that Ms DeSouza was British and asked her to apply for her husband’s residence as a British citizen or to renounce his British citizenship and apply as an Irish citizen .
Her case had been listed by the Court of Appeals in June, but did not proceed after the Home Office admitted and changed its rules so that all those born in Northern Ireland are now considered EU citizens for immigration purposes. .
However, because the case did not go to court, the DeSouzas were unable to request that their costs be covered and on Friday they received an invoice for £ 45,935. This is in addition to approximately £ 36,000, paid out of their own savings and crowdfunding, which they had already spent fighting the case in the lower courts.
They still have to raise around another £ 25,000.
DeSouza said the public response was overwhelming.
“I run a coffee shop and Jake lost his job as a musician due to Covid … even though he got another job as a customer service agent,” he said. “We are just ordinary working people who have quite low wages, so to get a bill of this size, it is simply unimaginable for us,” he said. “It would take three years of our wages just to pay this bill.”
Small donations
More than 1,700 people have donated money to the DeSouzas campaign in the two years since they launched their crowdfunding page. Of the £ 25,000 donated since they raised their goal to cover the additional bill on Friday, much of the money raised comes from small donations of £ 20 or less.
“It has been a roller coaster of emotions,” Ms. De Souza said. “We have had a great deal of public support and the messages we have received have been very reassuring.
“They remind us that we are not alone in this, and that we were never alone in this, because the case we carried out was for everyone in Northern Ireland and it seems that a lot of people have recognized it.”
He also said it raised the question of why “it fell to people like us, normal citizens, to have to come together to cover the cost of this case, a case that should never have been brought to court in the first place. “
Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher has written to the Minister of Public Expenditure, Michael McGrath, suggesting that the Government “should contribute to cover its legal expenses as a gesture of goodwill and gratitude.”
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