<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/sep/26/sukhdeep-wants-to-see-her-mother-while-she-is-still-alive-but-australias-visa-rules-have-left-her-in-limbo>
"Sukhdeep Kaur sits in her living room in Melbourne, phone in hand, day after
day, waiting for her mother, Ranwant, to call from Ludhiana in India. The phone
rings in the evenings – when the time difference and her mother’s cancer
treatment schedule allow them to speak.
Sometimes Ranwant is crying. Often she asks to spend time with her daughter
before her health deteriorates further.
“She is 75 years old, she is calling me every day to see her,” Kaur tells
Guardian Australia. “She’s asking, ‘I want to see you while I am alive.’”
But, Kaur says, “I can’t leave to see her.” If she does, she won’t be able to
return to Australia for three years.
That’s because Kaur is on a bridging visa.
Kaur and her family have lived in Sunbury, in Melbourne’s north, since 2015.
She and her husband, Jaswinder Singh, applied for ministerial intervention in
early June 2023 so they could stay in Australia after her employer sponsor
failed to lodge a permanent residency application on Kaur’s behalf.
She has been in limbo since then, unable to visit her mother, whom she hasn’t
seen in seven years. Experts say her experience is shared by many migrants on
bridging visas waiting for ministerial intervention applications to be
considered."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
