Hello, welcome to another episode of Unpacking Neuroqueerness. This is your
host George Mooney's Gun. Today I'm going to talk a little bit about ableist
immigration laws, in particular with two specific countries, Canada and Australia.
Many people don't realize, but places like Australia and Canada in
particular will not allow you, they still have laws in place that prevent
people with developmental disabilities, intellectual disabilities, such as autism
and ADHD and many more, to immigrate into their country because they're deemed a
burden on the taxpayer. And this is addressed in a paper by Roy Haynes, PhD
associate professor of social work at Carleton University. He wrote a paper
called None is Still Too Many, an historical explanation, exploration of
Canadian immigration legislation as it pertains to people with disabilities. And
there are a few pieces of this that I'd like to read. There's one here. While
significant legislative changes have been instituted to address
immigration policies which were once racist, sexist and or homophobic, no
similar changes have been made to address ableist immigration legislation. As a
result, Canadian immigration legislation continues to deny or restrict
immigration opportunities for people with disabilities, as case studies will
attest. By developing in this history, it is hoped that readers will address
important questions about the ethics of the continued discrimination
against potential immigrants with disabilities and the ethics of decision
making processes which devalue the lives of people with disabilities. Similar to
previous legislation, the 1967 Immigration Act was rooted in ableism. For
example, while the white paper suggests that impairments alone should not be
deciding factor in permission to immigrate to Canada, people with
disabilities remained within the prohibited class designation. Yes, you
heard that right. Now, let's move on to Australia. I'm going to read a piece from
a website Australian Greens which talks about Australia's immigration, ableist
immigration laws. Australia's immigration system is exempt from the
Disability Discrimination Act. These discriminatory rules are weaponized and
ensure that disabled people are treated unfairly. This has led to unjust
deportations of disabled children born in Australia and denies disabled people
the opportunity to immigrate here. And there was I also wanted to mention a
recent case of a Korean family with an autistic son that was born in Australia
that was being the Australian government was threatening with deportation. I
believe this was last year. A seven-year-old, this is from 9 News Australia,
by the way, there's an article on this if you Google Autistic Australian
Deportation case. It will show up. The title of the article is Autistic
Australians Condemned Disgusting Visa Decision and disgusting is put in
quotation marks which upsets me because they were, as I will tell you, they were
trying to deport this kid just because he had an autism diagnosis and he was
deemed a burden on the taxpayer. He was born in Australia but has been he had
Korean parents and he was deemed a burden on the taxpayer causing the
Department of Home Affairs to deny his family application for skilled regional
visas. And the Korean family, his entire family was facing deportation after
living in Australia for more than a decade unless immigration minister Andrew
Giles or Home Affairs Minister Claire O'Neill chose to intervene in the case
and huge shout out to Australian actress and activist Chloe Hayden who in full
support of the limb family called on the government to allow them to stay in
Australia and eventually thanks to her and the work of other autistic
advocates this family was eventually granted permission to stay in Australia
but that is one small victory in a very rotten system and this happens to many
families on a daily basis. This as I just mentioned we have outwardly ableist
immigration laws still in places like Canada and Australia and these are the
ones that we know about these are the ones that have been documented because
ableism is still present in many places and it's not always overt ableism it's
not always obvious kind of ableism it's not where people openly express that
they that say that they don't like disabled people or it's it's not just
that it is systemic it is ingrained it is ableism that people do on a daily
basis without even realizing that it is ableism and I think that there's there
are just a lot of people out there that fail to to grasp that they think that
ableism is just saying that you don't like disabled person or using the R word
or whatever and it's not it's I mean that is of course a very overt very direct
kind of ableism I am talking about what I talk a lot about in this podcast and
I'm what I'm talking about with this when these immigration laws is the
invisible ableism the the the more succinct ableism the not the ableism
that the hidden ableism I should say because it's only invisible because
people don't want to see it hidden ableism is what I talk a lot about on
this podcast so yeah I just wanted to do a brief episode to talk about these
shameful disgusting immigration laws and it is just appalling to me it is the
sad thing is it's not even that appalling that a major news network
mainstream media such as 9 news would put disgusting when we we talk about they
put in there they put disgusting in which in quotation marks when we talk
about like why not just say would know quotation marks after autistic
Australians condemn disgusting visa decision because that is what it is it
is outward ableism and there is outward ableism out there and news media
mainstream media companies they put quotation marks over disgusting because
that and that implies that they don't necessarily agree that it might mean
disgusting or that there is a somehow an argument for that not being disgusting
can we just take a pause and think about that how the way that these
headlines are written makes you think that it's debatable it makes you think
that there's a legitimate argument for outright ableism not being disgusting
that's when I'm also trying to get at when this episode so yeah thank you for
listening to this episode I hope you were able to learn something from it I
hope you were able to get something from it and I hope it makes you upset too and
I hope it encourages you either a disabled person yourself or family or a
family member or friend or an ally someone that wants to be a true ally to
disabled people I hope it makes you encouraged to reach out to your your
local people to like spread the word to advocate for change as well because we
are tired of carrying the load we need help we can't roll the boat on our own
and I stress that a lot on this podcast so once again thank you for listening and
I hope you enjoyed this episode once again and I will see you next time thank