Supporters of a Tamil asylum seeker family holed up in immigration for three months fear they could be split up on Tuesday.

An urgent injunction on Monday prohibits immigration from deporting the mother, Priya, and three-year-old Australian-born daughter Kopika.

But the father Nadesalingam, known as Nades, and their youngest daughter Tharunicaa, 1, could be deported at any moment.

The family had lived in the rural Queensland town of Biloela for three years before being removed by immigration in an early morning raid on March 5.

Biloela resident Angela Fredericks said the family was now “very scared” of being separated.

“We would hope they [immigration] would not separate a one-year-old from her mother,” Ms Fredericks told The New Daily on Monday.

“I’m an emotional mess and it’s not even happening to me. I can’t even imagine the fear, and I hear the fear in their voices.”

The government indicated it did not intend to split the family, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said, but there was no legal guarantee.

Ms Fredericks – a social worker who also knew the family through church – said it could be two to four months before the mother and daughter’s appeal is heard, meaning months more in detention.

“We’re really concerned about Kopika. She is showing aggression, which is something quite normal for children in detention as they don’t understand what’s happening.

“Every morning she wakes up and Priya says she just says, ‘Come to Bilo [Biloela], come to Bilo’. And when the parents obviously can’t take her to Bilo, she then gets very angry and says, ‘I’m not talking, I’m not talking’.

So yeah, she is definitely deteriorating, which is very scary.”

The department would not comment on “individual detention arrangements or potential removal operations”.

A spokesperson said foreigners who do not have a valid visa and have exhausted all avenues to remain need to voluntarily leave the country, or face deportation.

There are fears Priya and Kopika could be split from Nades and Tharunicaa. Photo: Tamil Refugee Council

“This family’s case has been comprehensively assessed over many years by the department, various tribunals and courts,” the spokesperson told The New Daily in a statement.

“They have consistently been found not to meet Australia’s protection obligations.”

Nades has exhausted all avenues to appeal and supporters have called on Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to intervene.

Ms Fredericks said the government could release the family at least for the remainder of Priya and Kopika’s appeals process.

Supporters are petitioning Qantas and 11 other airlines to refuse to fly the family to Sri Lanka.

Biloela residents also delivered a petition to Mr Dutton in May, with about 100,000 signatures asking for the family to stay.

The family was taken to Perth Airport and put on a plane for deportation a week after they were taken from their home, but they were allowed to disembark after a last-minute legal intervention.

Federal Circuit Court Justice Caroline Kirton rejected Priya and Kopika’s appeal on Thursday, leaving them with 21 days to appeal that ruling.

They had already begun the appeal process when they were issued deportation notices on Friday, before their successful injunction on Monday.

Justice Kirton noted Nades had returned to Sri Lanka three times during the civil war, which ended in 2009.

The Tamil Refugee Council said Nades faced persecution for his former association with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The council said the law was “clearly broken” if the family did not meet Australia’s protection requirements.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture last year found evidence Tamils forcibly returned to Sri Lanka as recently as 2016 could be abducted and tortured.

Ms Fredericks said the protection application process was difficult to navigate, particularly for the rural family who speak English as a second language.

“The other real concern is Australia’s stance on the protection obligations of Tamils from Sri Lanka, and the fact that our government is not recognising the very real threat.”

Nades arrived by boat in 2012.

Priya left Sri Lanka in 2000 and has not been back since. She arrived in Australia in 2013 by boat.

Both daughters were born in Australia and have never been to Sri Lanka.

-with AAP