Community's desperate final attempt to stop Tamil family's deportation
The small Queensland community of Biloela has continued to rally behind the Tamil family being held on Christmas Island as they face deportation.
Priya, Nades and their two Australian-born daughters, Kopika and Tharunica, could be deported as soon as Friday but their supporters have refused to give up hope.
In an eleventh-hour plea to keep the family safe in Australia, a GoFundMe page has been established to fund emergency advice from “human rights organisations, security experts and journalists”.
Created by Biloela resident and family friend Angela Fredericks, the page raised more than $40,000 of its $300,000 goal in just one day.
The decision to have the family deported was motivated by the fact Nadesalingam and Priya entered Australia illegally, and the conflict they were fleeing at the time has since ended.
The Department of Home Affairs and The High Court both found the family did not have a legitimate case for obtaining refugee status in Australia.
Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Scott Morrison also spoke publicly in support of the family’s deportation.
Last Friday, they were forced on to a plane in the middle of the night bound for Sri Lanka, but the flight was re-routed in the air and ended up landing in Darwin.
“When a judge ordered the plane land in Darwin, Mr Dutton forced them to an empty prison camp on Christmas Island,” Ms Fredericks wrote to the fundraising page.
Mr Morrison said he would not make any special cases to help the family, arguing “you don't create special cases just because Twitter says so” on 3AW Radio.
Ms Fredericks said if forced back to Sri Lanka, the family would be “slapped with an impossibly heavy debt to repay the cost of their forced deportation”.
She said because of this, they would not be able to migrate to Australia “like anyone else”, as Mr Morrison said they should.
In Sri Lanka, Priya saw her fiancé burned alive, and Nades still has shrapnel from a government bomb inside his body, Ms Fredericks said.
“In Biloela, they found peace, safety and a place to call home. Nades volunteered at Vinnies and worked hard at the local Meatworks (abattoir),” she said.
“Priya joined church groups and brought her curries up to the doctors at the local hospital. They are a part of this town, and we just want them home.”
She said if the decision to have them deported was overturned, the money raised would be given to “charities working hard to support rural Australians doing it tough”.
“My heart is still full of hope, for my friend Priya, and for us all,” Ms Fredericks said.
The Federal Court will on Friday continue hearing the case of two-year-old Tharunicaa who is currently detained on Christmas Island with her family.
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