Sister faces being deported

[Guest The Pom Queen]

Let's hope Peter Dutton can use common sense and let this lady stay.

 

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has temporarily halted the deportation of a South African woman who was refused a visa in the wake of an unusual legal ruling that she is not related to her biological sister, who is an Australian citizen.

Mr Dutton said he had been unaware of the case of 58-year old Perth grandmother Linda Oppel until he read about it in The Australian this morning.

Mrs Oppel, who has no family in South Africa and has lived in Australia since 2012, applied for a Remaining Relative Visa so she can stay in Perth with her two adult children, her baby grandson and her sister Monica, who moved to Australia 13 years ago.

But the application was rejected via a one-line response from Assistant Immigration Minister Alex Hawke on May 3, meaning Mrs Oppel and her daughter Venessa, 29, were preparing to leave Australia by the end of next week.

Mr Dutton said today that Mrs Oppel would not have to leave Australia while he examined the matter and “nobody will be deported or taken into in detention” during this process.

“I saw it for the first time in The Australian today,” he told Perth radio station 6PR.

“I asked for a brief very early this morning from my office. The lady involved won’t be deported whilst I’m looking at the matter.

“As for Alex Hawke and myself, we deal with these complicated family files on a daily basis – there is always nuance to a particular case. But it did grab my attention this morning.

“There are many cases where we do intervene – where there might be sick children, there might be a sick parent or a particular family circumstance.

“We are a compassionate country. We provide support to a lot of people and allow people to become Australian citizens or settle here permanently.”

Mrs Oppel’s husband of 30 years died of cancer in 2011, prompting her to move to Australia to be closer to Monica. She later received a temporary 457 visa which allowed her to work.

But in 2014 the Migration Review Tribunal rejected her application for a Remaining Relative Visa on the basis that she had no familial link with Monica. It found this was because Mrs Oppel had been adopted by an older half-sister when she was 12.

“The effect of the adoption has been to sever the link between the applicant and her biological parents, and hence the link between the applicant and [Monica],” it said.

Mrs Oppel’s lawyer, Jessica Eddis, said this strict application of the law had produced the perverse result that the two sisters could be reunited solely because Linda had been adopted whereas Monica had not.

Mrs Oppel has no relatives left in South Africa and sold the family home and all her belongings when she left in 2012. “I will leave the airport in South Africa, and then what?” she said. “It’s also very unsafe for women in South Africa - I’m really scared to go back.”