Battle to save asylum seeker baby and his family from deportation

A Rohingyan refugee family detained on offshore Nauru processing centre were recently transferred to a Brisbane hospital to allow the heavily pregnant wife to give birth by Caesarean section and to receive treatment for her diabetes.

Two weeks later, the family and the newborn are still in detention and awaiting deportation back to Nauru in spite of the fact the baby was born on Australian soil. Brisbane lawyers are now fighting to have the family stay in Australia as the newborn is very weak and unable to feed properly and his mother is still recovering from the birth.

The test case is based on the rights of asylum seekers to show independent medical advice before deportation decisions can be made. According to their lawyer, the family has received poor treatment from officials and are not being allowed to spend enough time in the hospital with their newborn son.

The case is expected to highlight the injustice of child asylum seekers being detained offshore as well as the legality of deporting an Australian-born child. Immigration minister Scott Morrison, however, is defending immigration’s action, saying that it’s common practice for hospitalised newborn children of asylum seekers to be separated from their parents, at least overnight.

The child’s mother was taken back to a Brisbane detention centre just four days after her baby was born. Senator Sarah Hanson-Young told reporters there was no excuse for separating an asylum-seeker mother from her newborn child, especially when the child was obviously sick and in special care.

She added the decision was senselessly callous and inhumane.Lawyers for the family will argue in a Brisbane federal circuit court that the family should be allowed to stay in Brisbane until the baby’s health improves enough for him to be moved. They believe the case is important for the human rights of asylum seeker families.