BRITISH IMMIGRATION MADNESS

Britain lets in hostile Muslims at a great rate but people who assimilate are not welcome

At 5pm last Tuesday, Eleonora Suhoviy was dumbstruck by four simple words: "We accept this appeal." Although the courtroom at Field House, London, resembles a cheap conference centre, the Ukrainian says the moment was, "as theatrical as Kavanagh QC. I couldn't take it in. I froze. The world froze. It was only when I stumbled into the corridor outside that relief swam over me".

For 24-year-old Suhoviy the judgment marked the end of a six-year deportation battle with the Home Office. She had moved to Britain from Ukraine with her mother at 13, taught herself English by reading Sherlock Holmes and attended a comprehensive in Lincolnshire where she defied the odds to excel in maths, physics, music and languages. But though she became the first girl in her school's history to win a place at Oxford University, on her 18th birthday, Suhoviy was told by the Home Office to get out. She was no longer a child and was therefore no longer entitled to remain in Britain. Her achievements counted for nothing. She would have to return to Ukraine.

A ferocious networker, the gifted girl launched a campaign that has seen luminaries such as Michael Howard, Frederick Forsyth and Jeremy Paxman write letters supporting her bid to stay. They praised her passionate Anglophilia, her intelligence and tireless work for the NHS after leaving university, to say nothing of her unusual desire to join the Royal Navy as an intelligence officer. But though it seemed like common sense would prevail at her tribunal last week, her victory was won - according to her barrister Jonathan Goldberg QC - "by the skin of her teeth".

And was clinched not on the obvious merit of keeping such a bright and driven talent in Britain, but on a technicality. The girl who many see as a poster child for positive immigration would be allowed to stay, said the panel of three judges, not on merit but only because the Home Office had dithered for too long after deciding to deport her in the first place. The case raises serious questions for the Home Office. Why, when it claims to be encouraging qualified immigrants to come to Britain, is it pushing people such as Suhoviy out? And how many other anglicised child immigrants is it sending back without consideration of their achievements at 18?

I meet Suhoviy outside the Oxford and Cambridge club in St James's, where she certainly looks British - texting a friend in the sunshine, her scarf knotted Sloanily. When she says "Hello" even her voice is plummy. And no wonder. Despite (perhaps even because of) humble beginnings - first in Lviv, a large city in north eastern Ukraine, then later in Lincoln - both Suhoviy and her mother have always idolised the British Establishment. "Right from the start I was here to work," says Suhoviy, sipping tea.

Every year some 5,000 juveniles enter Britain with their parents seeking asylum. A further 2,500 arrive unaccompanied, put on planes and ferries by their families and left to fend for themselves on arrival. Most are granted temporary leave to stay but on their 18th birthdays orders are sent by the Home Office to deport the "For some who've made a life here it can seem very, very unfair," says Suhoviy. It was the promise of making a life - a better life - that first tempted Suhoviy and her mother here in 1994. After divorcing her husband Svetlana Suhoviy moved to the UK with Eleorora because, "she believed Britain was a meritocracy," explains her daughter. "She believed this is a place where a child could do well and where there would be nothing to hold her back."

Though she and her mother returned to Ukraine for 10 months in 1995 to re-qualify for tourist visas, Svetlana eventually gave up her career as a biochemist and settled full-time in Lincoln, where they had friends. One goal was explicit from the outset: Oxford, that bastion of traditional British aspiration. But on her first day at school, the dream of attending the university seemed a long way off. "It was bewildering," says Suhoviy. "The children were very friendly but they all thought I was a KGB officer because I didn't speak any English and was wearing a leather coat, which were fashionable for children in Ukraine. The maths was so easy though, the physics simple and I remember being outraged in biology because the questions were so childish." The teachers tried hard, she remembers, but the resources were pitiful. When she said she wanted to go Oxford the school didn't even have a prospectus, and advised her against applying.

Meanwhile, Suhoviy's love affair with Britain began in earnest when she made friends with an English family who had lived in the area for generations. "I owe them a lot because they introduced me to the English way of life," she says, a little misty eyed. "Radio 4, The Times, tea and scones, tennis, the breakfasts with bangers and fried bread - I loved everything about it. "I loved these customs and traditions because they made me feel part of the community. I was fascinated by the school governors and local councillors and always sought them out to speak to. I loved these people because of what they stood for."

She always preferred the Britain of Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Evelyn Waugh. With her excellent GCSEs and five A-levels, she found this Britain in Oxford when she went for interview in 1999. "It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. The dons, the darkened rooms, the mystery, the legends. I knew I couldn't go anywhere else. This was why I was here - England." The likelihood of her going still seemed remote. Her mother's appeal against deportation had been refused as the Home Office believed that a man she had married was for convenience. Was that fair? "No," says her daughter. Are they still together? "No, the Home Office ruined their relationship."

When Suhoviy got her place at Exeter College to read modern languages, "all my dreams came true". But when she turned 18, the Home Office wrote to her solicitor to inform them they wanted her out. As a student, Suhoviy would be allowed to stay, but though she had won a scholarship from Lincoln Cathedral, there was still the matter of the international fees. Here her story takes a Dickensian turn, when in response to a local newspaper article, a secret benefactor offered to pay 30,000 pounds on the condition that Suhoviy never seek out his identity.

She made good on the investment. At Oxford she thrived, winning exhibitions and the Fitzgerald prize. She gave recitals and during her five terms serving as a committee member for the Conservative Association, socialised with Tory grandees. "This is what is extraordinary about England," she marvels. "You have access to these amazing people and all the opportunities they can offer you." Though she met everyone from Michael Howard to Margaret Thatcher, her friends never knew that each month she had to report to the police station so the state could monitor her whereabouts. "I was always there with these criminals, and when I was doing my finals it was particularly ridiculous because I was wearing the full gown and so on. The police thought I was pulling a student prank."

After graduating in 2003, she got a job as an administrator at the John Radcliffe hospital where she worked illegally. But Suhoviy explains that, "the NHS is so understaffed that everyone does it and I always paid tax. What would you rather I did? Stay home and claim benefit?" Life was good, but time was running out.

Last autumn, with her appeal hearing fast approaching, Suhoviy enlisted the help of some of those influential men meritorious Britain had allowed her to meet. Having assisted Jonathan Goldberg when he was working on a case in Oxford, she wrote to him for a character reference. Instead he took her case, waiving his usual 100,000 pound fee. Reasoning that a few well-placed letters would help, Goldberg enlisted his friend Frederick Forsyth, the novelist. "He has an address book second to none," says Goldberg and so letters were solicited from the Bishop of Oxford and Lord Carrington, among others. "This young lady is an asset of great value to the UK," said Forsyth. "She is exactly the kind of young person we ought to be raising in this country, and so often fail to do." For his part the Rt Reverend Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford, said it would be "a violation of common sense and a travesty of justice" for her to be sent back.

Nevertheless, last December Suhoviy's hearing ended with a judge telling her that while she was the sort of person who would benefit Britain she should also be deported. Goldberg was outraged. "In a supposedly democratic meritocracy we should not be ashamed to consider the quality of an applicant as being a deciding factor," he says. "Even back in 1938 our government made representations to Hitler to get Freud out of Vienna. The only thing that distinguished him from thousands of other persecuted Jews was his merit. We were not ashamed then so why are we ashamed now?" For Suhoviy, the battle was personal. "This is my home. I've lived here since I was a girl. I have no family left in Ukraine, except a father I don't speak to."

Emma Ginn of the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns thinks the situation for minors is ridiculous. "There are huge areas where there's no common sense, neither in terms of fairness for the individual nor for the needs of the country. There are even people who are being deported to countries they've never been to." These essentially British children, says Ginn, "have no affinity with the places they're being sent to - no family, no support structure". Goldberg believes that, "while Australia and Canada ruthlessly pursue an immigration policy based on point systems and merit, they count for next to nothing here and this case won't change that. Her circumstances were too unique, so you do wonder what will become of the next highly gifted young person who wants to stay."

Suhoviy's plans now include a masters in international relations at Oxford and then work as an intelligence officer in the Royal Navy. "And a holiday," she says. "I haven't been anywhere in 11 years because I was worried I'd be refused entry here when I got back." In Britain, it seems the floodgates are closed only to the most able.

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