A FAILED ASYLUM seeker living in Nottingham faces deportation to Malawi despite claiming to be Zimbabwean
She however, claims she will be killed if taken back to Zimbabwe.
Patricia Wadi, 38, entered the United Kingdom with a Malawian passport in 2002 but then claimed asylum as a Zimbabwean a year later.
UK authorities were not convinced that she is Zimbabwean and detained her for deportation in December 2008.
The expulsion was only stayed after the intervention of then Nottingham South MP Alan Simpson.
However her supporters say the UK home office has revived the case adding she would be deported to Malawi this week.
They insist that her deportation would be illegal since UK guidelines bar the deportation of Zimbabweans.
Wadi’s immigration adviser James Ramowski said: “It appears that from birth she would have been a dual national – both Zimbabwean, as she was born in Zimbabwe, and also Malawian, due to being born to Malawi parents.”
But Malawi does not recognise dual nationality for adults and when people turn 21 they are given one year to renounce nationality of another country or automatically lose Malawi citizenship.
Ramowski added: “Patricia cannot be Malawian as she would have lost this right upon turning 22. She has lived all her life and was born in Zimbabwe.”
The advisor said if deported to Malawi authorities there will send her onto Zimbabwe, where Wadi fears she will be killed.
She claims she fled the Harare after her husband, an activist for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, was tortured and killed.
Her adviser, Ramowski, said Wadi holds a Zimbabwean identity card and birth certificate.
“Regardless of nationality, she has never lived in Malawi and has no ties at all to Malawi. Her family continues to live in Zimbabwe,” he said.
However an official with the UK Border Agency said the agency was determined to remove all people who did not have the right to remain in the UK.
“The agency only ever returns those who both we and the independent courts are satisfied do not need our protection and refuse to leave voluntarily.
“We are determined to remove those with no right to be in the UK,” Phil Dyer, the agency’s East Midlands assistant director, said.