The 86-year-old American woman threatened with deportation has been granted a temporary residence permit, the Telegraaf reports on Wednesday.

Dorothy Murphy weighed just 51 kilos when her daughter picked her up in New York last September and brought her back to Almere because she could no longer cope with living on her own.

However, the justice ministry wrote to Dorothy to say she can be deported from May 18 because ‘there is no question of a more than usual dependency between you and your daughter’.

She has now been given temporary permission to stay while her case is looked into, the Telegraaf says.

Rob van Lint, director of the immigration service, told the paper her case will be reassessed to see if there are new facts which would allow her to stay permanently.