Australia Allows Family With a Child With Down Permanent Residency

This is a follow up of an earlier post discussing Australia’s refusal to grant a German physician and his family permanent residency because his son has Down. Well the light of publicity apparently so embarrassed the country that the decision has been reversed. From the story:

A decision to deny a German doctor and his family permanent residency because his son had Down syndrome has been overturned by the immigration minister.

Bernhard Moeller, a specialist physician, moved his family to Horsham, in Victoria’s west, two years ago to help fill a doctor shortage. But the Migration Review Tribunal (MRT) yesterday upheld the immigration department’s decision to deny Dr Moeller’s permanent visa application because his 13-year-old son has Down syndrome and was deemed a potential drain on the health system.

Dr Moeller’s case generated public outrage, putting pressure on immigration minister Chris Evans to intervene in the case.

Bravo. However, the effort it took to reverse this injustice got me wondering how many other such families are being discriminated against by immigration authorities, but have no redress because publicity of this kind is hard to generate.

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