The Government has told one of the people featured in its Pathways to Status publicity campaign to hire a lawyer to find out if she already has the right to Bermudian status.

Nicole Fubler, 21, appeared on a flyer issued last month by the Ministry of Home Affairs in support of the proposed immigration reform.

The description accompanying her photograph said she was born in Bermuda to a Bermudian father and Jamaican mother and her father died when she was just five months old.

“Despite having lived here all her life, and having a Bermudian brother, she is neither Bermudian nor a permanent resident certificate holder,” said the flyer. “She is also unable to work, which she says puts a strain on her mother as the sole breadwinner of the householder ... She has no passport at all, making her unable to leave Bermuda.”

The flyer went on: “Under the Proposed Pathways legislation, Nicole would be granted Bermudian status and finally be able to travel, study abroad and work in Bermuda.”

The flyer does not detail why the CedarBridge Academy graduate is currently ineligible for status and a request by The Royal Gazette for a full explanation from the Ministry of Home Affairs was stonewalled.

Researcher LeYoni Junos said she was perplexed since amendments to various laws appear to suggest Ms Fubler is already eligible for status.

Under the Immigration and Protection Act 1956, anyone born in Bermuda to a Bermudian parent should enjoy Bermudian status themselves. Although Ms Fubler’s parents were not married at the time of her birth, a 2002 amendment to the Children Act 1998, which came into force in 2004, removed any distinction in law between children born in or out of wedlock.

According to Ms Junos, that amendment led to the removal of a clause in the Immigration Act which required children to be born in wedlock to gain status if only one parent was Bermudian.

It also led to the removal of another clause relating to the domicile or status of the mother alone being used to determine whether or not a child could acquire status.

Ms Fubler was born before both clauses were removed from the Immigration Act but the Children Act states that the abolition of the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children applies to “any statutory provision made before, on or after the day this part comes into operation”.

Ms Junos said her layman’s interpretation of the law was that the Children Act amendment was retroactive, meaning Ms Fubler had been eligible for Bermudian status since she was nine years old. And she suggested that the Bermuda Government had misinformed the public by using Ms Fubler in its Pathways campaign.

“If what they have said is true about her circumstances, then Miss Fubler is entitled to a declaration that she has had Bermudian status since the day she was born. Any Minister of Immigration, since 2004, could have granted Miss Fubler the Bermudian status that should have been her legal right at birth.

“Miss Fubler does not need a ‘Pathway to Status’. She already has one.”

A Home Affairs spokeswoman did not provide an explanation for why exactly Ms Fubler was ineligible.

She said: “We have advised Ms Fubler to take legal advice. But up to now she has not had success in her endeavours to gain Bermuda status.”

Questions about how many applications had been submitted and rejected by Ms Fubler went unanswered.