More than 120 people attended a public meeting in Castleblayney College last night to ask for a ministerial review in the case of the Okolie family who were deported to Nigeria last week.
The attendance included local Fine Gael TD Seymour Crawford, as well as three county councillors and four Castleblayney town councillors, and at least a dozen close neighbours of the family.
Ms Okolie, her two sons Ike (15) and Chukka (6), and daughter Chidinima (10) were deported last week.
Gerry Hand, the principal of the college, said that they hoped to have the Okolies "sent back home to Ireland - and I use the word 'home' advisedly".
"It's not good enough to do nothing," he added. "Doing nothing is not an option. A mother who would bring her children half way across the world to provide for them deserves our support."
He said that the decision regarding the Palmerstown student was good news. "We are heartened that Minister McDowell did a U-turn on humanitarian grounds".
Mr Hand noted that of the 11 grounds under which asylum applicants may seek leave to remain, the Okolie family qualified under at least five, including length of stay, support of their community and the employability of "the highly educated and very employable" Ms Nkechi Okolie.
Against a background of a "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" stage set, which 15-year-old Ike Okolie had helped to paint, Mr Hand said that he had been speaking to Ms Okolie in Nigeria, and that the youngest child was "extremely ill" and all the family were living in fear.
Mr Crawford described the situation as "a very serious crisis that developed overnight when the Okolie family were removed so quickly from the community".
"I welcome the fact that the Minister, who was so strident and arrogant in the Dáil the other night, has given in in the case of the Palmerstown student."
He added: "There is more than a basis for this family to come back. The Minister did point out that this family went through the process, did everything as they were told, and he had to admit that he found it hard to understand why it took from January 21st, 2003 - when they applied for asylum - to the 11th of February, 2005 to be informed that they were to be deported."
Maureen O'Sullivan, representing the Monaghan Immigrant Support Group, told the meeting that there were about 120 asylum seekers in the reception centre in Monaghan town and that some now felt under threat and were very fearful about what had happened to the Okolies.
"We are not going to call for an amnesty - because that would suggest that they have done something wrong and they have not - but for a regularisation of their situation."
Two of the residents from the reception centre described their experiences to the meeting and pleaded for the right to learn and to work.
The meeting ended with the formation of a sub-committee to drive the campaign.