Gnads wrote on Sep 20
th, 2019 at 2:18pm:
Yet they have returned to Sri Lanka 3 times.
Don't be misleading. They arrived in Australia in 2012 and 2013, the civil war ended in 2009. So when you say "they have returned to Sri Lanka 3 times", this was not during the time they were seeking asylum in Australia - as you misleadingly imply.
What were the circumstances of those return trips? If it was during the civil war, then its likely they returned to tamil controlled areas - suggesting they were out of the reach of the government they now claim to fear persecution from. Who knows. Its reasonable to assume that the persecution of the tamils increased after the civil war ended, as the government asserted their control over the tamil population and stamped out any risk of another uprising.
That said, I do recognise that successive courts had rejected their asylum claim. But on what grounds? Asylum claims are notoriously difficult to assess, and unless claimants arrive armed with a stack of brief cases full of documents to 'prove' their case (obviously a ridiculous proposition when we're talking about people fleeing on an overcrowded boat) - the process must involve a lot of guess work.
And yet the point remains - this isn't about the asylum claim of the parents, its now about the youngest child (who wasn't born when the original claim was made). She has a right to have her claim heard. And you can whinge all you want about how this is the parents fault - but even if that were true, you can't say its fair to therefore punish the child.
They flew back & forth.