by Cam Lucadou-Wells
A Dandenong mother is pleading for a “compassionate” Australian Government to stop its planned deportation of her only son.
Supporters are rallying behind refugee Reeta Arulruban, who has long hoped to reunite with son Dixtan since she desperately fled from Sri Lanka a decade ago.
In 2012, she was raped by Sri Lankan security forces in her home, with Dixtan and Reeta’s mother in the next room.
She escaped via a scary, hungry and dangerous 17-day boat voyage to Australia. In June 2023, she was finally granted permanent protection with a Resolution of Status visa.
Meanwhile Dixtan, now 26, has languished for four years in immigration detention in Broadmeadows.
Recently, Home Affairs sent him a “removal notice” that he’d be deported in a week – which supporters put on hold with a legal injunction.
Reeta, who visits her “depressed” and “anxious” son every Sunday, says they feel there’s a “death sentence on his head”.
“He’s worried about what will happen to him in Sri Lanka. He will be one of the ‘disappeared’ Tamil people who are never found.”
The cricket-mad but quiet hairdresser has a handful of close friends at the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (MITA) centre.
He wants to look after his mother, who works in a factory and ails with glaucoma and asthma.
Then and now, Dixtan has little family in Sri Lanka.
His father – a suspected Tamil Tiger – had died when government forces bombed a ‘no-fire zone’, his uncle was long ‘missing’ and his grandfather shot by the military.
“He was a very outgoing person before his father was killed in 2009,” Reeta says.
“He turned inwards and was a very quiet boy after that.”
Counselling sessions help Reeta a “little bit” to cope with the anguish. “It would be like losing my husband and now losing my son,” she says.
She brings her hands together, saying she has a “total belief and hope” that a “compassionate minister will not separate a mother and son”.
“The Prime Minister (Anthony Albanese) was brought up with a single mother so he would understand what Dixtan and I are going through.
“Every time I see Dixtan, I give him hope. I tell him people are looking after you and trying to keep you here.”
When his grandmother died in 2016, he made a bid for an Australian visitor’s visa but was rejected by Home Affairs.
In 2019, Dixtan was being harassed by authorities on the streets and at work in the nation’s capital Colombo. He flew from Sri Lanka with a false passport to reunite with his mother.
Since arriving at an Australian airport, he’s been in detention.
“He was scared what would happen to him as well. It prompted him to leave because he felt unsafe,” Reeta says.
“I didn’t know he was coming (with a false passport), he knew I would say no. He was studying a beautician’s course and working in a hair salon – and my plan was to sponsor him eventually.
“He came with the help of an agent, and he did whatever the agent told him.”
Refugee groups and supporters such as Tamil Refugee Council have rallied behind the pair.
They brought a legal injunction to stop Dixtan’s deportation, and are calling for Immigration Minister Andrew Giles to intervene.
In a mounting campaign, they staged protests including a fortnightly vigil outside Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil’s electorate office in Oakleigh.
A full-page advertisement has also been placed in Dandenong Star Journal.
Tamil Refugee Council national coordinator Kalyani Inpakumar says “the community is devastated”.
“Reeta’s only child, the last remaining member of her immediate family, having been detained for years without charge by the Australian government, is set to be deported into the hands of her husband’s killers.”
Among the groups holding vigils at Ms O’Neil’s office is Bayside Refugee Advocacy and Support Association (BRASA) and Grandmothers for Refugees.
“We think it’s a terrible thing to break up a family like that. Especially when they’re the last members of the family still living, and what they’ve gone through in Sri Lanka,” BRASA member Geraldine Moore said.
“This boy did the wrong thing, the government would argue. But there wasn’t a right way for him to come to the airport and apply for refugee status.
“It’s not a case where if we let him in and it will lead to another 10,000 coming in – it’s clearly a special case.”
Pamela Curr of Grandmothers for Refugees says the issue is about “basic human rights” and “keeping a family together”.
“Dixtan had no other way of getting here. There’s no suggestion that there’s any security problem about Dixtan.
“Hears are breaking for this woman – she just wants her son with her. She can look after him and he can look after her.
Also in support is Dandenong refugee advocate Wicki Wickiramasingham of Justice and Freedom for Ceylon Tamils.
He says Dixtan has done “nothing wrong” seeking refuge under international law.
The long-standing ALP member said Dixtan was unlikely to be safe if he was returned to Sri Lanka – where Tamils still live in fear under the watch of heavy security forces.
“The authorities will say we will rehabilitate you, we will look after you – two weeks later he will be missing. No one will know where he’s kept.”
Reeta’s federal MP Julian Hill said “I really feel for Mrs Arulruban as all such cases like this have human dimensions”.
“As you would be aware, Ministerial Intervention is a matter for Minister Giles, and consistent with long standing practice the Government does not comment on individual cases.
“Ultimately everyone in Australia is subject to the law and non-citizens who are found to not engage Australia’s protection obligations are not able to stay indefinitely.
“The matter is before the courts which are independent of MPs and I hope all of the circumstances are fairly considered.”
Ms O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles were contacted for comment.
