Lankan asylum seeker family's deportation appeal rejected

21 June 2018 10:06 am

A Tamil asylum seeker family living in the small Queensland town of Biloela have had their appeal to stay in Australia rejected by the Federal Circuit Court.

Earlier in the year Nadesalingam, Priya and their two Australian-born daughters were pulled from a plane overnight, just minutes before they were due to be deported.

Border force officials had previously removed the family from their Queensland home and put them in a Melbourne detention centre.

Tamil Refugee Council spokesman Ben Hillier said that they were handcuffed and taken in separate vans to Melbourne Airport on Tuesday, flown to Perth and placed on a flight to Sri Lanka.

But a last-minute legal intervention resulted in them being removed from the plane before it took off.

It's understood the couple came to Australia separately by boat in 2012 and 2013, following Sri Lanka's civil war.

They settled in Biloela on a bridging visa. (sbs.com.au)