Sri Lankan family pulled from plane minutes before deportation
FAMILY of asylum seekers based in Queensland has been given temporary legal reprieve from deportation, minutes before the plane set to take them back to Sri Lanka took off.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/c...ba8d2d144f9e78
A SRI Lankan family whisked from their Central Queensland home by Australian Border Security last week has been given a last-minute temporary legal reprieve from deportation.
Since the family was forcefully removed from their Biloela home 10 days ago, members of the Biloela community have sent a petition to the Minister for Home Affairs, Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton, for the family to be returned.
At the time of publication, 76,000 people had signed the petition.
The family of four had spent about one week in a guarded room at the Broadmeadows Detention Centre at the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (MITA) when, on Tuesday, parents Priya and Nadesalingam, known as Nades, were handcuffed, put in a van and taken to Melbourne airport, Priya told a translator for the Tamil Refugee Council (TRC).
She said her seven-month-old and 2 ½-year-old daughters, Dharuniga and Kopiga, were separated from them and travelled in another van.
They were flown to Perth, where they were put on an aircraft with several dozen other Tamils.
But a last-minute legal intervention resulted in Border Force officers removing Priya, Nades, Dharuniga and Kopiga from the plane moments before takeoff.
The other Tamils on board were deported to Sri Lanka, where their future is filled with uncertainty.
Priya, Nades and their two Australian-born daughters Dharuniga and Kopiga settled in the rural town of Biloela more than three years ago.
It is understood the couple came to Australia separately by boat in 2012 and 2013, following Sri Lanka’s civil war and married in 2014.
On March 5, just one day after Priya’s bridging visa expired, the family’s home was stormed by Australian Border Force officers, police and Serco guards, according to the Tamil Refugee Council (TRC).
Two days after arriving at the detention centre, Priya and Nades signed voluntary deportation documents.
Tamil Refugee Council spokesperson said: “This was a dastardly and reprehensible action.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/b...2b78?width=316
“Dharuniga and Kopiga were born in Australia. This is their home — they have never been to Sri Lanka and do not hold Sri Lankan citizenship.
“Priya and her family fled Sri Lanka in 2000 and Priya came to Australia five years ago. She has not been in the country for 18 years and her family is no longer there.
“Nades faces persecution for his former association with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which was militarily defeated by the Sri Lankan armed forces in 2009.”
Priya has been described by friends as a dedicated mother and Nadesalingam was said to be well-regarded at the Biloela meatworks.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Auspol?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Auspol</a> Join <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Biloela?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Biloela </a> Give up giving up for <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Lent?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Lent</a> sign here: <a href="https://t.co/6pNBChyTGg">https://t.co/6pNBChyTGg</a> Read here: <a href="https://t.co/eV8h0LntFN">https://t.co/eV8h0LntFN</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/refugees?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#refuge es</a> <a href="https://t.co/0upZ7mYzU0">pic.twitter.com/0upZ7mYzU0</a></p>— Fr Rod Bower (@FrBower) <a href="https://twitter.com/FrBower/status/973343969051488257?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 12, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
http://www.news.com.au/national/quee...00e08bd6827eb1
