‘I hate being here’ – Yashika’s plea from Yarl’s Wood

Student Yashika Bageerathi has spoken to Channel 4 News from inside Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre saying that she feels “all alone” and hates being stuck there.

Yashika was due to be deported to Mauritius on Sunday 30 March, but did not board the Air Mauritius flight at Heathrow.

The spokesman from the Oasis Academy Hadley in north London confirmed today that Yashika will remain in Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre where she has been since 19 March.

The Home Office said it would not comment on individual cases.

In an emotional plea she told Channel 4 News:”I’m just hoping to get out from here and complete my A Levels.”

She also expressed her sadness at being separated from her mother on Mother’s Day and described how she has tried to continue her schoolwork despite the ongoing fear of deportation.

A legal team will lodge a high court injunction to try prevent the deportation. However, lawyers have already seen one appeal fail.

Promising student Yashika came to the UK with her mother, sister and brother in 2011 to escape a relative who was physically abusive. She claimed asylum last summer.

On Tuesday evening, Yashika along with her mother and brother and sister were told they faced deportation after getting a letter from the Home Office.

Petition protest

A petition by students calling on immigration minister James Brokenshire and Home Secretary Theresa May to stop the deportation has received over 165,000 signatures. Shadow immigration minister David Hanson said he would be making contact with the Home Office asking them to review the decision.

Posting on Twitter, he stated: “I am contacting the home office minister to intervene personally in #yashika case to ask for urgent further review.”

Mrs May has said that the plight of the teenager had gone through the “proper process” and she would not be stepping in to prevent her deportation.