Dutton fights drug-trafficker Tam Thi Le’s visa decision

The Immigration Minister has appealed a decision to allow a drug-trafficking grandmother to remain in Australia.

Convicted Vietnamese heroin dealer Tam Thi Le, pictured in 2001.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has launched an appeal against a Federal Court decision to allow a drug-trafficking grandmother to remain in Australia.

Tam Thi Le arrived in Australia from Vietnam as a refugee in 1984 and had been facing deportation on character grounds after serving three stints in jail for trafficking significant quantities of heroin.

However, the Federal Court overturned her visa cancellation on Christmas Eve, releasing her from immigration detention in time to celebrate Christmas in Brisbane with her husband, four sons and eight grandchildren.

The minister lodged an appeal on February 3, arguing the judge had erred in overturning her visa cancellation.

However, Immigration lawyer Nilesh Nandan, who is representing Le, said his client was “resolute in her fight to stay in Australia”.

“The appeal ... will be strongly defended,” he said. “Further costs in this appeal will be significant, presenting a considerable advantage to the minister.”

Convicted Vietnamese heroin dealer Tam Thi Le, pictured in 2001.

Court documents filed by the minister argue the judge erred for several reasons, including by finding that it was mandatory for the minister to consider whether Le still had refugee status.

“His Honour ought to have found that determining the respondent’s refugee status was not a relevant consideration ... as there were no current claims for protection,” the court documents say.

Le’s criminal history began in 1997 when she was jailed for supplying heroin, and in 2000 was imprisoned for trafficking “significant quantities” of the drug.

She was jailed for the third time in 2011 as “the leader” of a drug operation that also involved her husband and son.

While there was no suggestion Le had again turned to crime, Mr Dutton cancelled her visa last July — about 10 months after her release from prison — on the basis that she had a “substantial criminal record” and failed the character test.

He said he could “not rule out” the possibility of her reoffending and said the Australian community “should not tolerate any further risk of harm”.

In doing so, Mr Dutton took into account Le’s difficult youth in war-torn Vietnam, her addiction to gambling and the hardship of leaving her husband, elderly mother, five children and eight grandchildren in Australia to return to a country where she no longer had family support.

However in his December judgment, Federal Court judge John Logan said Mr Dutton had “proceeded on the legally erroneous basis” that he did not need to consider whether cancelling Le’s visa violated Australia’s obligation not to return refugees to a country where they faced persecution.

Justice Logan said the obligation was a “cornerstone” of the Refugees Convention, and it was not enough to find she had a “substantial criminal record”; it was also necessary to decide whether her offences constituted a “particularly serious crime” that posed “a danger to the community”.