Our story

My 12-year-old son, Eydan, came to Australia when he was two years old. Australia is where he learned to speak, started school, made his closest friends and built almost every memory he has.

It is his home.

In November 2023, Eydan's father, my husband Tito, died of cancer. He had been diagnosed only seven months earlier.

Since losing his father, Eydan has experienced significant anxiety and grief-related health difficulties documented by his treating clinicians and GP.

At times, his anxiety has affected his breathing and his ability to speak. He has needed psychological treatment, stability and a safe, familiar environment to help him recover. With the support of his friends, teachers, community and established routines, he has made significant progress.

Now, that stability is at risk again.

Our Bridging Visa E visas expire on 29 September 2026. On 26 August, the Department of Home Affairs advised us that our request for Ministerial Intervention did not meet the criteria for referral to the Minister.

This means that the Minister has not personally considered Eydan's circumstances.

After years of pursuing every lawful avenue available to us, we are not currently aware of another viable pathway that would allow Eydan and me to remain in Australia. The Department's notice states that a person whose Ministerial Intervention request is finalised is expected to leave Australia unless other immigration matters are ongoing.

Since my husband's death, I have supported Eydan on my own — working full-time, paying my taxes, and always respecting and acting within Australian law. We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for Eydan's circumstances to be personally considered before he faces an outcome with irreversible consequences for the life he has built here.

The life Eydan may lose

Eydan is currently completing his final year of primary school.

He should be looking forward to his Year 6 camp and graduation. He was elected by his peers and teachers as one of two students helping to organise that graduation. In December, he should be walking across the stage with the friends who have grown up beside him and supported him through the loss of his father.

Instead, neither of us knows whether he will be able to finish the school year.

Eydan is a talented young athlete. He plays football as a goalkeeper — the last line, the one who doesn't let the team down, a role he has had to learn to carry off the pitch as well. He also participates in basketball, swimming and water polo. His ability has been recognised through selection for competitive youth development opportunities.

He has also been offered a full scholarship to begin high school next year.

Beyond his sporting achievements, Eydan is a caring and involved member of his school community. His contribution to school life has been formally recognised, and he has worked incredibly hard to rebuild his confidence after his father's death.

The people, routines and community surrounding him have played an essential role in that recovery.

If we are required to leave, Eydan would arrive in Colombia at an unfamiliar point in the school year. He has no established home, school, friendship group or day-to-day support network there. English is his primary language, and he is far less confident communicating in Spanish. He has no meaningful memory of living in Colombia beyond visiting family. Almost his entire life has been lived in Australia.

What we are asking

Under section 351 of the Migration Act 1958, the Minister has a personal discretion to substitute a more favourable outcome when the Minister considers it to be in the public interest. Our request was finalised by the Department during its preliminary assessment and was not referred to the Minister.

We respectfully ask the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship to personally consider Eydan's circumstances and exercise that discretion in our favour.

We believe Eydan's situation deserves personal consideration: a 12-year-old child who has lived in Australia since the age of two, who has already endured the death of his father, and whose mental health, education and support network depend upon the stability he has built here.

I am urgently pursuing every lawful avenue available. At the same time, I am asking our community to help ensure that Eydan's circumstances are brought to the Minister's attention before our current visas expire.

What you can do

1. Sign and share this petition. Every signature demonstrates that the Australian community wants Eydan's circumstances to receive personal and compassionate consideration.

Please sign, share, and if you can, send that email. Help Eydan stay home.

 
How we reached this point

For anyone who wants to know more about our journey.

Tito and I first came to Australia to study English. We fell in love with the life and opportunities Australia gave our son and began working toward a pathway that would allow us to remain permanently.

Immigration requirements meant that only one of us could be the primary applicant. Because the pathway was less restrictive for Tito, we decided together that he would proceed first and that I would support him.

Before coming to Australia, I had worked as an accountant in Colombia for more than ten years. I stepped away from the profession I had built and took work that could fit around Tito's study hours so he could complete his qualifications and return to his professional career.

It was a decision we made together for our family's future.

After years of work and sacrifice, Tito received an employment opportunity in Perth that changed our lives. We relocated from Melbourne, and in March 2023 his employer offered to sponsor him.

The following month, Tito became seriously ill and required emergency surgery. Doctors discovered that cancer had already spread throughout his body.

Tito continued working whenever his health allowed while undergoing chemotherapy and immunotherapy. In October 2023, we learned that his remaining time would be very short.

He died on 16 November 2023.

The immigration pathway we had spent years building depended on Tito as the primary applicant. His death did not only take away Eydan's father and my husband — it also caused the pathway we had built together to collapse.

Since then, I have done everything I can to keep our family safe and lawful in Australia. Although I am no longer able to work in my own profession, I am fully self-sufficient: I work full-time, I pay my taxes, and I have always respected and acted within Australian law and immigration requirements. I have never asked this country for anything beyond the chance to keep raising my son here, safely and lawfully.

This is the third time I have faced the possibility of having only a short period to leave: first after notifying the Department of Tito's death, then after an application was unsuccessful due to an administrative technicality — a single missing document — and now following the finalisation of our Ministerial Intervention request.

The Department's most recent notice stated only that our request did not satisfy the criteria for referral. It did not identify which particular requirement was not met or explain why Eydan's circumstances would not be placed before the Minister.