A young Huddersfield woman has flown out to the States to try and secure a happy ending to her Transatlantic love story.
Lizzy Thornton of Quarmby has flown to Texas after immigration rules prevented her boyfriend Lewis Batohie coming to the UK to live.
Now the couple are planning a wedding within months, to fulfil their visa requirements.
But they have not given up hope of making a new life back in Britain in the future.
New immigration rules introduced by the US three years ago meant their plans to be together looked doomed.
The Examiner revealed the couple’s story last November, when they found out Lewis could not move to this country unless Lizzy could fund it.
And as a student, she fell well short of the income of £18,600 a year or savings of at least £62,500.
Lizzy, now 21, had met Lewis on the internet 18 months earlier.
After the heartbreak of last winter, the couple began planning for a new life in the States.
She said: “The time was spent doing endless research and putting together documents for my visa interview.
“In June 2013 I was asked to attend my visa medical which was performed at the US Embassy medical centre in London.
“In August I received the letter we had all been anxiously waiting for, asking me to attend my interview at the Embassy.
“Lewis flew back over to the UK to accompany me to the Embassy. I travelled to London for a second time and had to go through airport-like security at the US Embassy which was extremely daunting for someone with anxiety, but it was a lot easier with Lewis there with me.
“There were thousands of people packed into a waiting room, just waiting for their interview.
“A man asked me a few questions about my relationship with Lewis, where we would be living and looked through my medical results and the countless documents I had put together as proof of our relationship.
“My visa was approved right there and then and my passport was taken so they could add the K1-Visa to it.
“I was also reminded of the fact that, in order to stay in the USA on the K1-Visa, Lewis and I would have to marry within three months of my arrival in the USA.
“The process cost at least £1,000 in paperwork, police certificates, passport changes, medical certificates and travel to and from London.”
The couple have now returned to Lewis’s home in San Antonio, Texas.
Lizzy added: “Saying goodbye to my family was extremely difficult, but Lewis and I still plan to move back to the UK as soon as we can find a way to.
“We both love it there, and we both refer to it as home”.
