An asylum seeker slated to be deported from Australia after the High Court ruled in favour of offshore detention has begged the Australian government to let her son stay behind, saying she believes he is Australian.

Naomi*, an Iranian Christian who was intercepted in a boat on the way to Australia almost three years ago, said asylum seekers in detention in Australia were despairing after the High Court ruling.

"Please keep our innocents," she said through an interpreter.

"It is true we came by boat. We might have come and broken the law [even] if we didn't know the law had changed.

"But that should have no bearing on our kids. Our kids are innocent."

Naomi is the mother of Samuel, the baby who featured on the front pages of Fairfax Media newspapers this week.

Samuel – eight months old – is one of 37 infants born in Australia to asylum seeker parents who face deportation.

Another 50 or so older children and 160 adults face the same fate after being brought back to Australia from offshore detention for medical reasons.

"Whatever the government do or say, I believe they are Australian," Naomi said.

Currently an inmate of Darwin's Wickham Point detention centre, Naomi described how the children had already been damaged by their time in detention, and how it would only get worse on Nauru.

She said the babies and toddlers had trouble sleeping and were absorbing the "negative energy" of their distressed and depressed parents. The five-year-old children were becoming "aggressive". The older kids "constantly ask 'What is my fault, what is my guilt?'"

Perhaps worst of all is the uncertainty and wait for many years for resettlement in a country other than Nauru or Australia.

"Over the last 32 months, we have seen damage in a way that I can't even describe," she said. "It's just hopelessness ... It feels like we are dying, it's waiting for dying. We get very, very tired to wait for another country. It feels like a nightmare for us."

As of Wednesday afternoon, Naomi said asylum seekers at Wickham Point had not been informed when they will be deported.

"We have had so many bad news ... The mothers, they were all crying and upset when they heard the news [from the High Court]," she said.

"Nobody has informed us about anything. We are basically worried about officers just very savagely entering our rooms and transferring us to Nauru."

*Name has been changed