A Tamil asylum seeker family being deported from Australia has won a last-minute reprieve after a Melbourne judge granted an eleventh-hour injunction to block the move.
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Earlier on Thursday Priya, her husband Nadesalingam and their two Australian-born daughters boarded a plane that left Melbourne Airport for Sri Lanka.
However lawyers acting for the family's supporters say they have won an interim injunction in the Melbourne Federal Circuit Court.
It's understood the plane is due to land in Darwin about 2am.
The orders made by Judge Heather Riley state that the Minister for Immigration be restrained from removing the applicant from the Commonwealth of Australia.
A hearing is listed for 10am on August 30 at the Federal Circuit Court.
Biloela resident Angela Fredericks, who is behind the campaign to keep the family in Australia, said she is unsure what will happen to them now.
"I'd dare say they'd be escorted off the plane then I'd say they would be back in a detention centre so whether they will be flown back to Melbourne I don't know," she told AAP.
Priya and Nadesalingam came to Australia separately by boat in 2012 and 2013 following Sri Lanka's civil war.
The family had been held in a Melbourne detention centre since March 2018, after being taken from their home in Biloela, in Queensland, during a pre-dawn raid.
They lived in Biloela for four years on a temporary bridging visa before it ran out in March 2018. The High Court denied their final bid to stay in May 2018.
Last week the family found out their efforts to stay in the country had been rejected, with supporters calling on the federal immigration minister to reconsider.
Supporters previously told AAP they feared the family would be in danger if sent back to Sri Lanka.
The family has received strong support from Australians with more than 200,000 people signing a Change.org online petition to prevent them from being sent back.
The Department of Immigration had previously stated the family's case had been assessed over many years.
Australian Associated Press
