Deportation of Tamil family from Australia halted in mid-air

Emergency injunction granted, but government maintains it ‘doesn’t owe them protection’

Supporters of Tamil asylum seekers Nadesalingam, Priya and their two daughters last week in Melbourne (EPA)

A Tamil family’s deportation to Sri Lanka from Australia was halted mid-air after activists managed to have an injunction granted which stopped them being flown out of the country.

The injunction has paused the removal of husband and wife Nadesalingam and Priya, and their two daughters.

The family had been put on a non-commercial flight from Melbourne, bound for Sri Lanka on Thursday, but federal court justice Mordechai Bromberg delayed the deportation specifically of the two-year-old member of the family.

Supporters of the family had scrambled to protest outside the private hangar where the family were held at Melbourne Airport.

The last-minute temporary injunction meant the plane landed in Darwin early on Friday morning.

Nadesalingam and Priya, whose surnames have not been published, met and married in Australia after fleeing Sri Lanka's civil war.

Two-year-old Tharunicaa and her four-year-old sister, Kopika, were both born in Australia.

The Australian government defended the family’s expulsion on Friday, saying they were not refugees.

“I would like the family to accept that they are not refugees, they're not owed protection by our country,” home affairs minister Peter Dutton said, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

He said the couple had been told before they had children they would never be allowed to settle in Australia, and no court or tribunal has ever supported their case to stay.

“They came here by boat and we've been very clear that they wouldn't stay,” he added.

The family’s lawyer, Carina Ford, lodged an emergency injunction late on Thursday evening, which was granted by a judge over the phone because of the urgency.

Video footage from Darwin posted on Twitter by a supporter appeared to show the family being escorted away from the plane and taken to a white van.

“They are now in accommodation near the airport in Darwin,” supporter Angela Fredericks told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“They are absolutely exhausted and shattered but incredibly relieved.”

Despite the dramatic last-minute injunction, lawyers acting for the government have argued the case was “hopeless”.

The family’s plight has elicited strong support from Australians, with the case causing national outrage last year, and a petition to keep them in the country has received over 200,000 signatures.