Listen to Australian and world news, and follow trending topics with SBS News Podcasts.
TRANSCRIPT:
Ying-Hsi Chou's family is on the brink of being torn apart.
Born in Myanmar, she was restricted from having a Chinese name, despite her ethnic Chinese background.
Ms Chou later moved to Taiwan and became a citizen before adopting her current Chinese name.
That was two years after first making a trip to Australia as a fruit picker.
She later returned to Australia, met her husband Ben and had three children.
But her lawyer, Gordon Chang, says Mrs Chou now faces deportation because of a form she completed, in 2012.
"The new passport and old passport have different names, and she has made a very big misjudgment in her life, she had forgot to fill in the form that she previously come to Australia as well, as that is the crucial part, because later, the Home Affairs say that when you come back to Australia in 2014, you did not declare that you did not come to Australia before."
If Mrs Chou is deported back to Taiwan, she faces a three-year waiting process for a new Australian visa, and there's no guarantee her application would be successful after its submitted.
For her eldest son, Mrs Chou says the news has been particularly hard.
Without certainty over what will happen next, she says she doesn't always know how to answer his questions.
"(He says) 'Why can't I stay and my mother stays with me, I don't need to change schools, I don't need to lose my friends.' He just told me that and I don't know how to answer. I say, if I really don't try, I don't know what to do."
Ying-Hsi's husband Ben Cox told SBS News, without the necessary language skills, he and his children would struggle to adjust to life in Taiwan.
"I don't even know where to start with speaking Mandarin, and then find a job over there. It would take us months maybe years before we can get anywhere, plus we got a house and a mortgage paying off."
An online petition launched by Murray Bridge locals asking for Ying-Hsi to remain in the community has surpassed 3,000 signatures.
A separate legal petition by Mrs Chou's lawyer is being submitted to Immigration Minister Tony Burke calling on him to intervene.
The Home Affairs Department told SBS News, they don't comment on individual cases, but all non-citizens must satisfy migration legislation and rules.
