Please don’t kick us out, begs Bendigo family

A Thai family who have called Bendigo home for the past six years say they will be heartbroken if the Immigration Department decides to kick them out of Australia.

Penvisuth Supol and her three children Manansupa, 16, Sariyaporn, 14, and Maythus, 13, fear the Bendigo lives they love may be about to come to a sudden end.

The two youngest children have spent almost half their lives in Bendigo.

The department detained the family for a fortnight in April, transporting Penvisuth and her children to a Melbourne flat on her birthday after they were found to be living unlawfully in Bendigo.

The local community has rallied behind the family, who will learn their fate next week after appealing to Immigration Minister Chris Evans against a decision preventing Penvisuth’s working visa.

The family have been told to expect a decision within a week.

Weeroona College will discuss the plight of students Sariyaporn, known as Meu, and Maythus, or Max, today at assembly.

Bendigo Federal MP Steve Gibbons has also been helping the family, and he plans to meet with Mr Evans on Monday to plead their case.

Penvisuth, known as Neung, said her family were seeking residency visas to ensure they could remain in the country they now call home.

“The children are finding it very hard because they have spent almost half their lives here,’’ she said.

“Ever since we have been in Australia, we have been in Bendigo, this is our home.

“I believed I could start a new life here with my kids.

“It was a better future for our family.

“I don’t have an answer about what to do if we had to go back to Thailand. I took everything when I left.

“Bendigo is my home town, I have never gone anywhere else.

“I don’t know how I’d start it over again if we were sent back.

“The kids feel like this is their home too, they were young when they got here so they have forgot nearly everything from over there.’’

Her eldest child Manansupa, who is known as Mild, said she couldn’t imagine life without her friends and her job at Bendigo Cinema.

All three children say they feel Australian.”

We’ve been here so long, sometimes I seriously forget I’m Thai,’’ Mild said.

“We don’t even speak the language and it will be really hard to start up a life back there if we have to leave.

“Our life was pretty bad before and now it’s really good.’’

Like all three children, Max has picked electives for next year, the Year 8 student showing a keen interest in sports and the media.

For Mild, who will complete her VCE at Bendigo Senior Secondary College next year, the impending decision has even wider ramifications.

Neung has spent the past two years working at Charlton’s Air Conditioning and Central Heating, but was forced to stop work to ensure her employers were not subject to Immigration Department scrutiny.

A department spokesman said it was working with the family to resolve their status.

“Mrs Supol has lodged a request for the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship to intervene in her case, that request has just been received,’’ he said.

“There are no plans at this point in time to remove the family.

“What has happened is that Mrs Supol applied for a visa in 2002, she did take up an opportunity to seek an independent review of the decision but lost contact with the department.

“The department has relocated Mrs Supol three times and has worked intensively to help her resolve her situation.

“However, she didn’t lodge another visa application until 2008.

“She didn’t make the requirements for this visa to be granted and the Migration Review Tribunal affirmed this decision, and now she had lodged a request for the minister to intervene.’’

The spokesman confirmed the community detention of the family in April, but said it was due to repeated breaches of citizenship requirements.

“Mrs Supol and her family were briefly detained in the community in April this year,’’ he said.

“They were not in a detention facility. They were detained in apartments because they had been living unlawfully in the community for several months, and it was the third time they had been located while living unlawfully.’’-Bendigo Advertiser(Australia), October 08, 2008