The worst thing is the indefinite detention, which Home Office lies about. People are in here for 8-9 months. I have been here for almost 6 months. This is my third time in detention. Even prisoners know when they will be released. Here, if you don’t do anything, that’s a problem. If you do something, that becomes a problem as well. Time is taken away from our lives. I want to study and want to do my nursing. But I can’t do that. Months are taken away from us, we can’t get that back. It’s not fair.

We want to know, and we are going on the hunger strike. Something needs to be done about the detention system. I am paying a lot of money, just to be refused again and again. It is mentally draining. It needs to take shorter time to make decisions. [My] future is in their hands. I am trying to stay strong. I don’t want to end up on detention medicines. They affect you mentally as well.

Another problem is [how we need to] continue to find some help from outside. Home Office keeps lying, and they [detention centres] are sneaky. The main office will call us to come for something else, like healthcare. Next, the person is locked up for removal without their phone. Some people, when they are locked, don’t even know that the detention centre has your flight ticket. That is why we need to have each other’s numbers, and numbers of each other’s solicitors. We have to rely on other people’s help to communicate to the outside something is being done in here.

I want them to provide us a way to stay in the country. I came here when [I was] 18 years old. I learned how to be independent here. No more friends in —–. If I go back to —–, there is nobody there. If I have people there, I would be okay with going back. I would go back. But right now, I have my partner here. Friends here. Money here. Most people contributed to the country, and people are not on benefits. People worked and contributed. I don’t want the government money in any shape or form.

But applications are being refused by the case workers. What does a person have to do for her case to be considered? I want Home Office to reduce the requirement for the amount of time spent in the country. It’s like… they are not giving the opportunity. We should be given a chance to stay. In [my] situation, you need to do something to solve this problem. Look at the Windrush. What about the Commonwealth countries, then? People who spent 12-13 years in the UK, but do not ‘qualify’ to be the Windrush generation.

It’s like, I do understand that this happened many years ago. I do not want to have British citizenship, but a legal status to work. An option to regularise afterwards. Anything you apply for, however, is always “no, no, no” and “rejected, rejected, rejected”.

What about us? Everything is about the Windrush, and I understand that. But what about the detention system in general? We need to be focused on that as well. There are many people in the detention centres who need to regularise their status, who has been waiting for many years.

It really needs to be considered, because once we are released, it’s just a matter of time when we back here again. It is like a cycle. They take away our futures and lives and waste the tax payer’s money on this detention centres. We have loved ones to go back to. We don’t need to be locked up like criminals—even they know when they are being released. This place is mentally draining me. It is only a matter of time before I end up on depression medication. But I am trying to be strong.