Two and a half hours was the difference between Urooj Usman being able to return to her home in Australia and a life in indefinite limbo.
The mother-of-two has lived with her husband, Danish Ghori, in Pakenham, Victoria, on a skilled regional visa for almost four years. They rent a house there and Mr Ghori works in telecommunications.
On 26 February, she flew to Pakistan with her two young children - Zara, one, and Muhammad, two - to visit her father who had recently been diagnosed with severe cancer. Her husband stayed behind in Australia, where he remains.
When Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Australia would be shutting its borders to everyone but citizens, permanent residents, and their immediate family, she rushed to get on the first available flight home.
But when the first leg of her journey was delayed by two and a half hours, she missed her connecting flight.
There was now no way for her to get to Australia before 9pm on 20 March - the moment the borders closed, with no clear timeline for their reopening.
The family communicate via video chat. Source: Supplied
“It was a matter of two hours and it completely shattered my whole future,” she said, from Hyderabad, Pakistan, where she is stranded with her children.
“My daughter, the first thing she says when she wakes up is ‘baba, baba’ calling her father. My son starts crying when he sees his father on the phone. And for me, my husband is everything.”
Ms Usman is one of the hundreds of Australian temporary visa holders, including skilled workers, international students, and working holiday-makers stranded overseas after the government banned international travel to stem the spread of COVID-19.
But as the economy slowly begins to reopen, calls for the government to allow travel exemptions for those with lives in Australia have grown.
Greens Senator Nick McKim has written to Acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge urging him to allow temporary visa holders to be permitted to return to Australia "under the same conditions required of a permanent resident or citizen".
"Many of these people hold subclass 457,482, or 489 skilled visas, and have worked hard and payed taxes in Australia for many years," Senator McKim wrote.
He said others were on bridging visas and were unable to renew them overseas, raising the prospect that they would never be allowed to ever return.
The federal government has flagged that travel bans will remain in place for at least another three or four months.
While the government will consider an exemption to allow international students to return to Australia earlier, the government has no plans to give similar consideration to the broader range of temporary visa holders.
Questioned on the issue last week, Mr Tudge said his focus was “on keeping those borders strong”, despite a petition with 11,700 signatures of people calling for temporary visa holders to be allowed back being tabled in parliament.
In his letter, Senator McKim also called for the release of criteria being used to assess travel exemption applications on "compassionate" grounds.
"As a bare minimum, an application for a travel ban exemption should be considered to have compelling or compassionate grounds if the temporary visa holder has a home, job, or spouse/children to return to in Australia," he wrote.
Labor’s spokesperson for home affairs, Kristina Kennally, also called for the government to who live in Australia, can meet quarantine requirements and can support themselves, to be granted exemptions to travel back.
As of Monday, the Australian Border Force had assessed 7,691 applications for travel to Australia, including those transitting through the country.
Earlier this month, Australian Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram told a that 996 applications for travel on compassionate grounds had been assessed and 801 approved.
Despite this many temporary visa holders say they have had their applications for exemption rejected, including Ms Usman and her children.
Gonzalo Zabaleta, an Australian resident of seven years, also said he was “shocked” to see his application for a travel exemption rejected two times after providing documentation from his employer and landlord demonstrating his ongoing life in the country.
Colombian nationals Gonzalo Zabaleta and Luillya Carrero married in Australia and are now desperate to return to their home and careers in Sydney. Source: Supplied
Mr Zabaleta, who has a valid Temporary Work (Skilled) Visa, had travelled back to Colombia with his wife, Luillya Carrero, to see family for the first time since moving to Australia when the borders closed.
The couple, whose bosses expect them to return to their full-time jobs in Sydney, now fear their dream of obtaining permanent residency has been lost.
“We never expected them to close all the borders, from this day, life changed. We are desperate to come back home, to our jobs, we still have bills, we left everything there,” he said. “But more than that, it’s our future.”
The couple’s visa is scheduled to expire on 9 June and Mr Zabaleta said he “has no idea what will happen next”.
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