Calls for permanent visas for Biloela asylum seeker family as supporters prepare for homecoming – By John Baldock, Biwa Kwan
Source: sbs.com.au
The long-term future of the Murugappan family remains uncertain, after they were issued with temporary bridging visas to facilitate their return to the central Queensland town of Biloela next month.
Refugee advocates and Greens senator Sarah Hanson Young have called on the new Anthony Albanese government to go further and approve permanent visas for the Murugappan family who have been allowed to return to Biloela next month.
Nades, Priya and their daughters, Kopika and Tharunicaa are due to arrive in the Queensland town of Biloela by early June.
Family friend Angela Fredericks said arrangements are being made for accommodation, furniture and school for the children.
Supporters in central Queensland town of Biloela are also preparing to celebrate Tharnicca’s fifth birthday.
“We’ve got little Tharunicaa’s fifth birthday on the 12 June, and that will be her first birthday not in detention in her whole life,” she told SBS News.
Priya said she is thankful for the community support.
“I had the support of Nades and we had the support of the people of Bilo. But many others don’t have that support. So I want to help,” she said in a statement released by the Home to Bilo group.
PM says he was compelled to act
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said during his first week in office, he and his government decided to deliver on the election commitment to allow the family to return to Biloela.
“We’re a generous country, and the way I was brought up, you don’t treat people like that,” he said on Saturday.
When I visited Biloela in 2019, I saw just how much the community loves Priya, Nades, Kopika and Tharnicaa. Today my Government has enabled them to return home. #HometoBilo pic.twitter.com/PqYa59d1rD
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) May 27, 2022
Priya and Nadesalingam Murugappan, who arrived in Australia by boat, have attempted to seek asylum since being removed from their home in regional Queensland by Border Force officers in 2018 after their temporary visa expired.
A strong community campaign has been running in Biloela urging the release of the family from the accumulated four years of detention in Australia’s immigration system.
Those years have included detention on Christmas Island, with the last year spent in community detention in Perth.
The Department of Home Affairs had said it was deemed no protection was necessary after the family’s case was “comprehensively assessed, over many years, by the department, various tribunals, and courts”.
The CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Kon Karapanagiotidis, said it is hoped that permanent protection can be offered to the Murugappan family.
“Let’s hope that the govermnent is proactive. The family has been in limbo long enough and waited long enough, so let’s hope that happens next.”
Greens senator Sarah Hanson Young said the family must be able to rebuild their lives “for good”.
Finally the Biloela family can return home! But the new Government needs to grant the family permanent visas, not temporary ones if they are to undo all the cruelty and suffering that Mr Morrison and Mr Dutton put them through.
They must be able to rebuild their lives for good🙏— 💚🌏 Sarah Hanson-Young (@sarahinthesen8) May 27, 2022
Refugee advocate John Jegaosthy said members of the Tamil community in Australia rejoiced at the news the family have received bridging visas.
“For the Tamil community it was such a joy, and even those who are still without a visa rejoiced with them,” he said.
He said it would not be safe for the Murugappans to be returned to Sri Lanka where there is continued persecution of the Tamil ethnic minority.
