Crystal MacIver even has a National Insurance number and her three grown-up children live and work in Scotland.
But the Home Office want to kick out the 44-year-old because of a paperwork oversight that happened when she was a teenager.
Crystal was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, 35 miles from Boston, but came to live in Ayrshire when her Scottish mother came home after getting divorced.
She went to Ardrossan High School and earned an HND in hospitality management. In the 29 years she has lived in Scotland, Crystal had several jobs, married her first husband, had
two children, remarried and had her third child.
She now looks after her grandson, Christopher James, aged 18 months, while her daughter and son-in-law go out to work.
It appears Crystal’s mother, who died in 1998, did not apply for a British passport for her when they arrived in the UK and she has simply renewed her US passport ever since.
She now faces deportation after deciding in 2011 to get a UK passport when an immigration officer told her, on her return from a holiday, that it would be more convenient.
Crystal, who lives in Stevenston, Ayrshire, first had to prove that her mother was British. Having done that, officials demanded evidence of her right to stay in the country in the form of an immigration document.
A shocked Crystal says that would be impossible because she arrived in the country as a 14-year-old girl and has no idea whether any such document ever existed.
The Home Office claim her inability to produce the documents shows lack of regard for the laws of the country and calls into question her good character.
She must produce the documents by June 8 or her bid to stay in the UK will be refused, resulting
in deportation.
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