How do you sleep?

You may not have heard of Yashika Bageerathi. She is the girl that was deported to Mauritius yesterday. As a nineteen year old, despite the fact that her mother and family are in the UK, she can apparently look after herself, and so, even though she was six weeks away from her A-level exams, she was flown out of Heathrow last night by Air Mauritius.

There are so many ways to attack this, because it is a shameful act. We could have let her stay and finish the courses that our taxes have been paying for her to do. Then, assess her as an adult on that basis.

Or we could say that this is a nineteen year old girl who was given asylum in this country because of an abusive family in Mauritius is now being sent back to the same country without her mother. And that is simply wrong. Having admitted this family, we owe them a duty – one we have breached.

And as human beings, do we not have compassion? If any of you don’t feel at least a slight tug of unfairness when you read this then please close the blog now. Following the lead of Jonny Marr*, I forbid you to read it.

So this is what we have become. A nation that will separate a 19 year-old schoolgirl from her mother, and is prepared to jeopardise her academic future if nothing else, so that we can be seen to be tough on immigration.

This country may or may not have an immigration problem. That’s not the subject of today’s sermon blog. But if we do, it is principally a problem with unskilled migrants who are state dependent, or are here illegally. And how does deporting a seemingly intelligent schoolgirl deal with this?

Ah well, it will go down well with the voters of middle England who might have been thinking about defecting to UKIP, and hide behind their net curtains in fear of the forthcoming Romanian hordes.

So Mr Cameron, and Mrs May - because whatever you say about courts and process you could have stopped this – I hope you slept well last night. Knowing where your loved ones are and that they are safe. Because I am guessing that Yashika Bageerathi’s mum didn’t.

*when David Cameron appeared on Desert Island Discs, he named a Smiths song as one of his choices. Jonny Marr was incensed, and tweeted that Cameron was “forbidden” from liking the Smiths – I think on the grounds of being a complete t**t.