A British grandmother threatened with deportation back to the UK has just five days left on her visa and is ‘losing it’ with anxiety over the possibility of being forcibly dragged from her home.
Mary Ellis is facing the prospect of being arrested, placed in immigration detention and sent back to a country she hasn’t visited in more than three decades.
The 74-year-old’s latest bridging visa is due to expire on March 21, and the ‘E’ visas being issued to Mary have been getting shorter and shorter, now down to a mere four weeks.
Migration agent Stan Shneider who has been helping her pro bono, said Mary, who has lived in for 43 years, was ‘a sick old lady’ who was ‘very confused, sad and starting to lose it’.
Mr Shneider has appealed to the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Andrew Giles, and is now wondering if he’s even aware of Mary’s case.
Grandmother Mary Ellis, 74, has suffered a deterioration in her health as the her latest bringing visa is only days away from expiring and she faces the prospect of immigration detention and deportation
Mary came to in the 1980s but because she was out of the country in a window of time in which to qualify for ‘absorbed person’ status she is being threatened with deportation
‘I think he’s decent, honest and hardworking, however he’s surrounded by 200 staff members and they’re just going by the rules,’ Mr Shneider said.
‘Under the Migration Act there is a trigger to enliven the minister’s power to intervene, but I don’t think anyone has tested it – ever.’
Mr Shneider also compared the plight of Mary – who had worked, paid taxes, and volunteered for charity – with criminally convicted asylum seekers who had been released from immigration detention under a High Court decision.
Many ns support Mary, saying she had contributed to the country while urging Mr Giles to help her out.
People have also criticised the Albanese government for allowing ‘criminals’ to stay in and telling it to ‘have a heart’ and ‘leave Mary alone’.
One woman wrote online: ‘For goodness sake this is outrage, she so deserves to stay. The Immigration Minister needs to to fix this! Surely common decency on behalf of the Minister should automatically be granted! What on earth does the Immigration Department come to when we don’t deport people who should be jailed and deported a good Scout who has done nothing wrong in the 40 years she has lived here!!!’
A male poster wrote: ‘If this law abiding lady is deported, this country will become the laughing stock for all moral minded, laterally thinking, mature and justice thinking people across the globe.’
Another woman said: ‘So many illegal immigrants that are allowed into , who have broken our laws and are still here and they want to deport a grandmother who has lived here for over 40 yrs.’
Online support for Mary is growing, as is Facebook criticism of the minister and the Albanese government’s immigration policies
Mary’s case has sparked online criticism of the Immigration Minister and the Albanese government for allowing out criminal detainees but seeking to lock up and oust a ‘law-abiding grandmother’
Mary Ellis is feeling anxious as he latest visa runs out and the threats from Immigration officials hit home, such as this letter (right) stating she could face ‘serious consequences’
In contrast with Mr Giles easing restrictions on convicted ex-detainee asylum seekers, Mary has received a threatening letter from the Department of Home Affairs leaving her in no doubt of an official intent to deport her.
The letter, with words underlined for emphasis, states ‘you could face serious consequences including immigration detention and removal from ‘.
This means that unless the Mr Giles intervenes and Mary is unwilling to leave, she could be arrested by a police and taken in handcuffs to an immigration centre for deportation.
As Mr Shneider investigates the very few opportunities available under the Migration Act, parts of which he describes as an ‘appalling piece of legislation’, Mary’s health is deteriorating.
Mary went on television last month and begged the Department of Home Affairs to let her stay in after she was threatened with deportation over claims she had misrepresented her continuous residence in the country since arriving from Britain.
She said Home Affairs’ claims that she left three times under an alias between 1983 and 1986 were untrue, as were allegations her late husband Martin Ellis was really a man named Trevor Warren.
According to her own account, Mary first arrived in in December 1981 in the wake of a marriage breakdown, and began a relationship with Mr Ellis.
To qualify as an ‘absorbed person’ under ‘s Migration Act, Mary Ellis would be eligible only if she was in from April 2, 1984, and had not left the country since.
Mary said she had never returned to the UK once since arriving in 1981 and that she was ‘terrified’ of going back to Britain as she ‘didn’t know a soul’ there, declaring ‘I’m an Aussie’.
Mary Ellis (above) loves and wants to stay and with rallying online support it would appear many Aussies believe she deserves it after decades of work and paying taxes here
The tide of opinion in Facebook discussions about Mary Ellis’s case is squarely behind her and against the government’s immigration laws
Mary’s daughter Angela (above) said her mother did return home in 1986, but on Facebook people didn’t seem to care about the details, just that Mary was the sort of person should allow to stay in this country
She said she had paid taxes in , and held a Medicare card, pension card and an n driver’s licence.
However, a investigation poked holes in her story, unearthing Mary’s daughter in Britain who said her mother had returned to Britain, albeit 34 years ago.
used genealogical research to track down Mary’s ten siblings who live in the UK, and her estranged daughter Angela who effectively torpedoed Mary’s claims, saying her mum had flown to the UK in 1986 to sell her house in Croydon, Surrey.
It also found Mary’s Facebook page which revealed she was in touch with the majority of her siblings, all of whom lived in the UK, despite Mary saying they lived in other countries around the world.
Mr Shneider told Daily Mail he still had faith in Mary’s story that she had never left and that the part of the Migration Act which gives the minister the power to intervene was at best narrow, or at worst a kind of Catch 22.
Home Affairs told Daily Mail that Minister Giles’ personal intervention powers were only enlivened under certain sections of Migration Act, which are when a person is refused a visa, or a review tribunal refuses to intervene in the case.
However Mr Shneider responded to this saying Mary Ellis had not applied for an absorbed person visa – because under the Migration Act no-one can, it is just a status that is acquired if you qualify – and therefore she had not been refused a visa.
Migration agent Stan Shneider has staunchly supported Ms Ellis, and says the Migration Act only allows narrow opportunities for the minister to intervene but he is giving it a go
Further, if Mary hasn’t been refused a visa, she cannot apply to a tribunal like the AAT for a review of that refusal.
‘Notwithstanding this, I am in the process of applying to the AAT with a request that it quickly refuse the application,’ he said. ‘I am doing so hoping that it will be enough to trigger the Minister’s right to intervene.
‘Mary denies she is here illegally and I tend to agree with her. It is all very well for the Department to contend she is an illegal immigrant, but despite numerous requests by me over years now for the Department to provide its so called proof, it never has.
‘I presume it never has because it can’t.’