Cork schools cancel demonstration as Justice Minister opts to intervene in family's deportation

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan is to review the case of a Cork family who face being told to leave Ireland, the Irish Examiner can reveal.

The Khan family, who have lived in the city since 2017, are due to meet immigration officials later tomorrow.

News of the move by the Justice Minister was broken to the family by Tánaiste Simon Coveney.

As a result, a planned demonstration by children from four schools on the steps of the Cork City Library has now been cancelled.

However, the three teenage boys at the centre of the case and who were summoned to Dublin by immigration officials along with their parents will still not be attending the meeting.

This is because they have been refused permission by their school principal - who has spearheaded a campaign to keep the Khan family in Cork - to take time off school to attend.

The teenagers Zubair, Umair and Mutjuba Khan are - along with their parents, their sister and their older brother - facing deportation back to the UK.

The three boys have been attending a secondary school in Cork since their arrival in Ireland from the UK in 2017 and living in direct provision since then.

Zubair, a fifth year student, Umair, a Transition year student and Mutjuba, a second year student are studying at Coláiste Éamann Rís in Cork City.

Immigration officials have reviewed their status and it is feared they could be asked to leave the country.

Coláiste Éamann Rís Principle Aaron Wolfe has already condemned the prospect of the family being asked to leave as “immoral”.

But with the boys’ parents and their older brother due to meet immigration officials tomorrow, he has banned the boys going with them.

“It’s is against Irish law for these lads to miss school and I haven’t given them permission to take the day off," he said.

We are shocked and delighted that Minister Flanagan is going to intervene.

"The Tánaiste told me himself by phone at 6.45pm this evening.

"I haven't had a chance to tell the family yet, but they will be delighted."

He said teachers and other students will keep the teenagers company until their parents return back from Dublin.

And he said that when they arrive at the National Immigration Bureau in Dublin at 2pm tomorrow afternoon, they were due to be greeted by a group from the Edmund Rice Schools’ Trust.

The organisation, of which Coláiste Éamann Rís is a member, put up a petition on change.org in support of the Khan family that has attracted more than 5,000 signatures.

Their oldest brother Hamza is a first year Sanctuary Scholar studying computer science at University College Cork under a scholarship scheme for refugees and asylum seekers living in Direct Provision centres.

He has said his father, Mubeen, fled to Saudi Arabia from Pakistan to escape persecution in 1982.

His wife Hina Mubeen is also from Pakistan but Hamza, his three brothers and sister were born in Saudi Arabia.

The family continued to live in Saudi Arabia until the death of King Abdullah in 2015.

The new king, King Salman and his son Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, introduced crippling new tax laws on July 1, 2017.

A Department of Justice spokesperson said: “For reasons of confidentiality, the Department cannot comment on individual immigration or asylum cases.”

If a decision is taken to “transfer” the Khan family back to the UK, from where they arrived in Ireland, they will have 10 days to appeal.

If their appeal fails, they will have to return to the UK and could end up being sent back to Saudi Arabia.

And from there, they could end up back in Pakistan.