Ersson has been involved in trying to stop deportations before – helping refugees access legal help and stalling the removal process – but this was the first time she had made it on to a plane to intervene. A group of activists, mainly connected through Facebook, had heard that a young man was about to be deported. People chipped in with money for a plane ticket; Ersson went home to get her passport and headed straight to the airport.
It turned out he wasn’t on the plane, but “there were rumours going around” that immigration officials had been moving other people due to be deported. They figured out an Afghan man in his 50s was among them. Ersson didn’t know anything about him, even what he looked like, but she soon realised he was on the plane and the young man wasn’t. Ersson approached him at the back and spoke to him briefly before one of the security guards accompanying him pushed her away.