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SYDNEY, Australia — A German doctor whose family was twice denied permanent residency in Australia because of his son’s Down syndrome has been allowed to stay after the immigration minister intervened on his behalf.
Dr. Bernhard Moeller moved to Australia with his wife and three children nearly three years ago when he was hired to work as a specialist at a rural hospital in the southern state of Victoria.The family decided to apply for permanent residency, but were appalled when their application was rejected this month because Dr. Moeller’s 13-year-old son, Lukas, has Down syndrome. (Father and son are pictured.)
Australia has a longstanding policy of weighing medical conditions in its residency decisions. Any applicant deemed to have a condition that would incur significant costs to the state-run health care system must be rejected under Australia’s immigration laws.
The Moellers appealed the ruling to the Migration Review Tribunal, the immigration department’s appellate court, but it upheld the decision. As a final resort, the family took the case to the federal immigration minister, Sen. Chris Evans.
The immigration minister has the power to overturn decisions by department if he deems there are special circumstances.
"I received a request this morning from Dr. Moeller to intervene and I have granted permanent visas," Evans told Parliament on Wednesday, according to the national broadcaster. "As minister, I can take into account all the circumstances and it was clear to me Dr. Moeller was making a very valuable contribution to their local community."
Dr. Moeller told local media the decision was "a great relief," and called on Australia to make its immigration rules more flexible.
The Moellers’ case sparked outrage in Australia, where doctors serving rural areas are in short supply. The case also attracted attention from international disability rights groups, who called the decision discriminatory.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From The New York Times:
