'Our story makes Romeo and Juliet look like amateurs,' says husband of deported American wife

A husband has condemned British immigration authorities after his American wife was deported for overstaying her visa while he says she was waiting to see whether she was still suffering from cancer.
David Price only found out that Samantha was being sent back to the US when she made a tearful pre-dawn phone call from a detention centre to tell him she was being put on a plane.

She claims she was removed in part because of the high cost of her cancer care.
However, the Home Office said she had been in the country illegally since 2011 and had been given extra time to receive treatment.
Mr Price, 35, from Edgbaston, told The Birmingham Mail: “They came into her cell at 4am and told her that if she moved or reacted they would inject her and she would wake up in Texas.
“I got a phone call at 5am from her. She told me ‘they are taking me now. I love you. I don’t know when I will see you again.’ Then the phone was taken off her.
“I don’t know why Sam or I weren’t told about her imminent removal. It’s a disgusting way to operate.”
The couple married in Texas in 2004. They later moved to the UK when Mr Price overstayed his visa, an offence that means they cannot be reunited in the US until next year.
“She is the wife of a British citizen,” added Mr Price. “We are in love and have been married for 12 years. Yet she has been ripped away from me like this.
“Our story makes Romeo and Juliet look like amateurs.”
Mrs Price had a mastectomy in 2013 and said she was awaiting results to see whether the cancer had returned when she was taken to Yarl’s Wood detention Centre, in Bedford.
She spoke to The Birmingham Mail by telephone from the US, and said: “They came in the night like the cowards they are and since I didn’t have proper notice I wasn’t able to see my husband to say bye, get the rest of my clothes or my belongings.”
A spokesman for the Home Office said Mrs Price had been in the UK illegally since 2011 after overstaying a six-month visa.
She was declared fit for travel and had been given written notice of impending removal, he said.
“We are aware that she underwent treatment for cancer in 2014 and immigration enforcement worked with Mrs Price, deferring her removal to the USA to allow her to receive treatment,” he said. “Mrs Price did not regularise her stay in the UK, and declined the option of returning to the USA voluntarily on several occasions.
"For this reason, and after her cancer treatment, we made arrangements for her removal from the UK.”