Malawi student helped by readers was taken in handcuffs to face deportation fate
The 30-year-old is facing deportation, and solicitors, friends and human rights campaigners are working round the clock to overturn a decision that could see her flying back to Malawi on Monday.
Delia came to Derby from her African homeland in 2001 to stay with a relative and study for her GCSEs.
After 12 months in the city, she flew back to Malawi with the dream of returning to England and qualifying as a nurse.
Readers of the Derby Telegraph helped to make this possible by raising £5,000 to help sponsor a place on a nursing course at Mackworth College.
Delia passed with flying colours and then landed a place on a nursing degree course, which was sponsored by the NHS, at the University of Nottingham. During all that time she was legally entitled to stay in the country on a student visa.
Delia graduated in 2006, by which time her visa had expired.
Since then, she has been trying to get the necessary paperwork to stay in the country and has been going through the appeal process.
Every week, on the orders of the Home Office, she has been reporting to an immigration centre in Loughborough.
During a routine appointment on Wednesday, she was stunned to learn she was to be deported.
Delia was taken in handcuffs to the Yarls Wood Detention centre in Bedfordshire.
Speaking to the Derby Telegraph from the room where she must remain until deported, she said: "It was like being in a cage and a big shock to me.
"I wasn't allowed to get any of my things from my home and I am hoping my friends will get something to me as I have nothing.
"My belt was removed and I was searched when I got here."
"I don't feel very well treated and I feel that I have been given very little information about what is happening."
Delia believes she has provided all the necessary paperwork required by UK Border Agency but was told in December that she could no longer stay in the country and must make arrangements to leave.
She said: "I have continued to apply for leave to remain in Britain as a student but kept being turned down because I couldn't prove I had money or a sponsor to support me.
"But I have been doing community work and have also worked for 20 hours a week in nursing homes and hospitals to earn money.
"In all my time here, I have never claimed any benefits and have supported myself."
After she completed her nursing degree, Delia went on to study for a degree in Third World Development at the University of Derby.
She had to stop that last year when she ran into financial problems.
Zena French, who helped secure a place for Delia at college when she first came to Derby in 2001, was shocked to hear about the plight of the student.
A lecturer at Mackworth College, she said: "It was her dream to take her skills back to Malawi and help people there that suffer from HIV.
"She was an honest person of great integrity and it will be a gross miscarriage of justice if she is deported.
"Delia has a lot of skills to offer this country."
Janice Murray, NVQ assessor at Derby College, hosted Delia for a year while she studied for her GCSEs.
She last heard from Delia in December.
She said: "She lived with me in Mackworth for a year and integrated herself into our family.
"We still kept in touch when she went off to do a nursing degree and, when my daughter was in hospital in Nottingham, she came to visit us.
"I had a letter from her in December which said that she was hoping to complete a masters before going back to help communities in Africa.
"She was a woman of integrity and had always done things by the book."
A Border Agency spokesman said that all foreign nationals must ensure they have valid leave to remain in the UK.
He said: "Without the necessary documents, applications may not be able to be processed and when an applicant has no leave, they are liable to removal action.
"However, applicants are able to re-apply to enter the UK once they have left the country."
Delia's solicitors, Mantilla and Stonerwood, in Birmingham, are hoping to prevent her from being deported.
Ateeya Begum is representing Delia and said the firm was in the process of filing a judicial review with the courts.
She said: "This would halt the procedure and defer removal directions. Making an application to the court to have the case review would mean immigration would have to consider this."
A spokesman for the University of Derby did not rule out Delia being able to return to university and continue with the suspended degree course.
He said: "In our admission records, Delia was able to supply a range of certificates from different courses she had previously studied in this country, and her records showed she had been in the UK for nine years when she first applied to join one of our courses.
"Delia was a student on the BSc (Hons) Third World Development course in the first year and was a good student. But it appears she was unable to pay her fees and therefore at the start of this academic year, she was blocked from continuing her education at the university."
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