NICOLA Sturgeon has accused the Tories of shameful behaviour and promised to do “everything she can” to help Denzel Darku, the student nurse who has lived in Glasgow since he was a teenager and who now faces deportation to Ghana.
Darku’s constituency MSP Neil Bibby told MSPs yesterday about the astonishing contribution the 23-year-old had made to the country since coming here when he was 14.
He said: “Denzel is a young man who has built his life in Paisley, who was a member of the Scottish Youth Parliament, a Commonwealth games baton-bearer and a student nurse who wants to work in our NHS, but who is also the victim of bogus migration targets and the Home Office’s hostile environment policy.
“He has contributed a huge amount to this country and he wants to stay in Scotland and the UK, so that he can contribute even more.
“Given the reaction of many people in my community and across the country, it is clear that people want him to stay here, too.”
He asked the First Minister to “make clear to the Home Office the impact that its immigration policies are having on young people in Denzel’s position”.
The Tory Government department was, Bibby added, “driving a young man such as Denzel away from the place that he calls home”.
There was sustained applause from Labour, SNP, LibDem and Green MSPs in the chamber, but the Tories sat sill.
Other MSPs shouted “shame” at Ruth Davidson and her backbenchers. Sturgeon said: “The complete lack of support that the Tories have just shown for a young man who has made Scotland as his home and who wants to continue to have Scotland as his home says everything we need to know about the Conservative Party today. Shame on them.”
The First Minister said she had met Darku in the past, calling him “a fine young man” and “an absolute credit to Scotland”.
The decision to deport him was “outrageous, scandalous and a disgrace”. Sturgeon added: “We should be trying to attract more young people of his calibre to Scotland, not chase them away.
“Denzel wants to be a nurse in our national health service. How many times do the Tories stand up in this chamber and complain about matters in our national health service? How many times do they stand up and complain about staffing shortages in our health service?
“However, the Tories want to deport a young man who wants to contribute to our national health service. Ruth Davidson is saying from a sedentary position that she did not agree with the targets, but she wants Scotland to remain locked into those immigration targets that are so damaging to our economy and society.
“The immigration policies of the Tories are disgraceful.
“I will do everything that I can to make the case for Denzel Darku and to argue that case, as I am sure that Neil Bibby, as the MSP who has taken up the case, will do. However, we need more than action in one case; we need a change to immigration policy and a more humane policy”.
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