A woman from Leeds is desperately fighting her husband’s deportation a few weeks before her 19th wedding anniversary.
Linda Rose said her “whole world stopped” when Damion Thompson was taken from her Chapel Allerton home and taken to a deportation center in Manchester.
He has since been moved to a unit next to Heathrow Airport and has been told that he will be flown out of the country on Wednesday 11th August.
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Damion, who spent 14 months in jail almost 10 years ago, has not since committed a criminal offense, and Linda told LeedsLive that his time behind bars “taught him a lesson”.
However, a Home Office spokesman said: “We do not apologize for trying to remove dangerous foreign criminals.”
Linda, a mental health nurse, said she had been desperate to get answers since her husband was taken to a deportation center, claiming an officer told her, “Just talk to your husband about Zoom when he’s in.” Jamaica is “.
“Our marriage means nothing to these people,” she said.
“To learn that it doesn’t count and that my husband is a criminal and is likely to reoffend is terrible.
“We have a right to be together as a family. What they do is unjust and wrong.”
Damion Thompson with his wife Linda Rose and stepdaughter Rebecca as they graduate from Leeds Trinity University
(Image: Linda Rose)
Damion was convicted of possession of a controlled drug and criminal property in 2011, but was released after 14 months.
Since then, he has met his immigration bail requirement, which requires him to report to his local police station every two weeks.
Linda told LeedsLive that he never missed this, but on his last visit he was suddenly taken to an immigration center without any warning.
She also claims that over the past few years immigration officers have turned up unannounced at her home.
“They have been trying to get him on deportation flights for years,” she said.
“They came five or six months ago on the same day he had to ‘sign up’ for his immigration bail, as he has to do every two weeks.
“We feel treated with contempt. Our lives have been opened to the whole community and we are treated like criminals in our own homes.”
Damion, who came to the UK in 2000, married Linda two years later, on August 31, 2002.
He has raised Linda’s 21-year-old daughter Rebecca since she was 18 months old and the two of them “keep fooling around”.
“There have been three of us all these years so it would be devastating to lose Damion,” said Linda.
Damion Thompson with his stepdaughter Rebecca on her 21st birthday
(Image: Linda Rose)
He is currently being held at the Colnbrook Immigration Removal Center, but Linda fears the scale of the situation is having a serious impact on her husband.
“Damion is so upset,” she said. “He is at the end of his tether.
“I don’t think it hit him at the beginning, but as the time gets closer, he says less and less to me.
“I can hear the stress in his voice. He sounds depressed.
“He hasn’t lived in Jamaica for more than 20 years and has no family there at all, but the Home Office just says he’s young enough to get a job and a house there. He’s being asked to do that” impossible . “
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Linda describes her husband as “very human” with many friends across town, and many have signed the 35,000-strong petition calling for Damion’s deportation to be overturned.
A Home Office spokesman said there was no comment on operational matters.
Although each case is treated individually, the UK Borders Act 2007 provides that deportation must be ordered if a foreigner has been convicted of a crime and given a prison sentence of 12 months or more.
In a statement, they said: “We do not apologize for removing dangerous foreign criminals and those with no right to stay in the UK.
“Our new Law on Nationality and Borders will create a fair but firm immigration system that welcomes those who are really in need but cracks down on those who come to Britain illegally.”
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