A US-BORN Gaelic singer rejected by immigration authorities has won her bid to stay in Scotland – one month and £4000 later.

Last month, the Sunday National revealed how Gaelic organisations and the Scottish Government were calling for a major rule change after the case of Maya Evan Matyas revealed how Arts Council England, not Scots experts, rule on Gaelic-related immigration cases.

Matyas, originally from Texas, performs and writes in her adopted language and is a member of the celebrated Alba choir which represented Scotland at the Eurovision Choir Contest.

But when she applied for an exceptional promise visa – aimed at “highly skilled individuals in the fields of science, humanities, engineering, the arts” who can “enrich the UK’s knowledge, economy and society” – Arts Council England ruled she wasn’t eligible.

That body is used by the Home Office to rate applicants working in Gaelic, despite lack of expertise in Gaelic language, culture and arts.

And no Scottish organisations like Creative Scotland or Bord na Gaidhlig have a say.

The story generated a wave of public support and saw the Scottish Government, Gaelic language body Misneachd and arts organisation An Lochran call for change.

Now this newspaper can reveal that Matyas has won that same visa after a struggle which cost her more than £4000.

The National:

The 34-year-old had to fly to New York as her application was finalised and touched back down at Glasgow Airport earlier this week.

Sharing her “relief”, she said: “I feel like I’ve been in survival mode for six months. That’s a long time to be braced for the worst.

“The process is traumatic, it’s just an extraordinary amount of pressure.”

After moving around the US and other countries as a child, Matyas says Scotland is the first place that has felt like home.

She fell in love with Gaelic on her first visit to Scotland in 2004 and later moved to make her life here, studying the language, learning traditional songs and developing a bilingual fiction writing style under the name M Evan MacGriogair.

Dr Alasdair C Whyte, of Glasgow University’s Celtic and Gaelic department, praised her talent and she took home prizes at the recent Mod.

Last month Matyas questioned why she had to “petition the English arts council for the right to make art here”, saying: “I don’t feel they are equipped to understand the magnitude of the crisis facing Gaelic and the language at every structural and institutional level – or to care, more importantly.”

After her case hit the news, a review of her visa bid found in her favour and she paid a premium to fast-track the final stages of her application. The whole process, including administration fees, email charges, flights and the NHS surcharge levied against non- European Economic Area migrants, has cost her upwards of £4000. The sum bought her permission to live and work here for five years and four months, at the end of which she will apply for indefinite leave to remain.

Matyas said: “At every stage they just take more and more of your money.”

Campaigners and solicitors have accused the Home Office of “exploiting” applicants with inflated charges, but the department says it is right that applicants make an “appropriate contribution”.

It took six months from start to finish for Matyas to secure her visa, a process she calls “harrowing”.

She describes her week-long stay in New York, where she completed the necessary biometric processes, as “a fog”.

She said: “I have little memory of last week, it’s strange. I feel like I aged a decade in a week.

“The stress and pressure of having my entire life up in the air was a lot.

“I just wanted to get home.”

On the way back to Scotland, Matyas landed in Ireland, where the emotion of the process hit her.

She said: “I went into the toilet and just started crying and for 20 minutes I couldn’t really stop and couldn’t figure out why.

“When I got home to my flat and the door closed behind me it was the same thing, half an hour of sobbing. Everything has been contingent on this.

“I have wondered why anyone would care what I was going through, but I honestly don’t think I would have managed to get through this process without the people around me.

“Having the support of my communities, from my choirs to the readers of the Sunday National and everyone who came to me online with supportive comments, that kept me going, knowing people had my back.”