Updated
Australian Border Force (ABF) officials have been
condemned as "underhanded" for acting late on Friday afternoon to issue a
deportation notice to a Tamil asylum seeker family that could see them
flown out of Australia within days.
The ABF notice came a day after the Federal Circuit Court rejected the family's latest appeal against deportation, but ahead of any further court appeal.Priya and Nadus, and their two Australian-born daughters, remain at the Melbourne immigration detention centre where they have been held since they were removed from their home in the central Queensland town of Biloela, where they had lived for about three years.
A campaign led by Biloela residents has been pleading for government intervention to let the family stay.
Biloela-based family friend Angela Fredericks said she received a call about the notice from a family friend at about 5:00pm on Friday and was told the family could be deported by next Tuesday.
"They were given 21 days to appeal this court's decision, and it's quite underhanded that we're taking them out of the country before they can even do that," Ms Fredericks said.
"You know 5:00pm on a Friday, over the weekend — we're going to look at getting some vigils going, some protests going down in Melbourne."
Principal solicitor at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Caroline Graydon, said government lawyers had provided written confirmation the family would not be deported before Tuesday.
She said the ABF had made a clear attempt to "deny [the family] their legal rights".
"The timing ... of the removal notice demonstrates a lack of regard or respect for people's right to consider their options, get proper advice about whether they have grounds for an appeal, and to lodge their appeal," she said.
Ms Graydon said an urgent hearing had been called for Monday to seek an injunction against the deportation notice and lawyers had worked rapidly to lodge an appeal with the Federal Court.
"The Federal Court usually decides matters pretty quickly, especially for people who are in detention and especially when there are children involved," she said.
"I expect the Federal Court will probably lift and hear this matter in perhaps three months or so — I imagine it will be a prioritised, accelerated case."
Ms Fredericks said many people were scared about what the family would face back in Sri Lanka.
"There are people who are really angry, and there's just the rage there over the injustice of all of this. Then there are the people who are just gutted and feeling hopeless and despair," she said.
"We're going to keep fighting for this family because they're our friends, they're our neighbours, they belong here.
"I would just plead for the Government to just allow this family to follow the due process and let them do the appeal."Last month, two Biloela residents used the ABC's Q&A program to press Liberal Senator Jim Molan to ask Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to intervene in the case.
The parents arrived in Australia separately by boat in 2012 and 2013.
After they were detained in Biloela, the family were flown to Perth in March and placed on a flight to Sri Lanka, but a last-minute legal intervention prevented their deportation.
They were then sent back to immigration detention in Melbourne.
Previous appeals against deportation by family members through the refugee tribunal and lower courts had failed before Federal Circuit Court Justice Caroline Kirton rejected an appeal by Priya and her eldest daughter.
The father of the Tamil family, Nades, has already exhausted all avenues of appeal.
In her judgement, Justice Kirton found the initial assessment by the Immigration Assessment Authority, which denied refugee status, had been properly conducted.
Justice Kirton also noted that Nades had returned to Sri Lanka on three occasions during the civil war and there was no evidence to suggest his family still living in Sri Lanka was at risk from authorities.
Mr Dutton's office has been contacted for comment.
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