Ableist Immigration Restrictions

 

Academic and activist discussions about discriminatory immigration policies and practices seldom attend to ableist immigration restrictions.  Such restrictions are, however, embedded in the immigration policies of many countries. Consider the case of York University professor Felipe Montoya, his wife Alejandra Garcia-Prieto, and their two teenage children.

After living in Canada for three years, Montoya and his family have been denied permanent residency here because one of the teenagers, Montoya and Garcia-Prieto's 13-year-old son, has Down syndrome. Montoya says that the international hiring officer at York warned him that he might encounter difficulties because of his son. The following excerpt is taken from a CBC News article:

 

A Costa Rican family is leaving Toronto after three years in Canada because immigration officials say their son's Down syndrome is too much of a burden on taxpayers.  Even though they are leaving the country, they're still fighting what they call medieval and barbaric legislation because they say it may help other families.

Felipe Montoya and Alejandra Garcia-Prieto have been trying to get permanent residency in Canada since they first moved to Toronto three years ago with their two teenage children so Montoya could teach environmental studies at York University.  But immigration officials have refused to green light their applicancy because their 13-year-old son, Nico, has Down syndrome. 

"Our fight is more of a matter of principle," Montoya told CBC Radio's Metro Morning on Monday. "You have people who are deemed inadmissible because they may cost the state."

Montoya said when he first landed the job at York University, the international hiring officer warned him that he might encounter stumbling blocks to permanent residency because of Nico's condition, but he thought he must have misheard the officer.

"He was singled out solely because of his genetic identity," he explained. "The only difference is he has a genetic condition that makes him different."

Garcia-Prieto said it is "really, really devastating" for her to experience a process she believes to be unfair. "Down syndrome people are victims of a stigma," she said. "It's just papers, they don't know the person."

 

Read the article here.

 

posted by Shelley

Comments

[Komarine]

This is so disgraceful. But then again, many aspects of immigration law are.

[Shelley Tremain]

I agree Komarine.

Here is another case from 2011 in which a family was deported to South Korea because one of the children is autistic and has seizures: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/moncton-family-to-be-deported-to-south-korea-1.1001213

And another case from 2012 in which the family of a University of Victoria professor was denied permanent residency because one of the children is autistic: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/american-university-professor-in-b-c-denied-permanent-residence-in-canada-due-to-autistic-son

Here's an article that shows that Donald Trump's idea to bar Muslims from immigrating to the U.S. in not without historical precedents in the U.S.: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-immigration-laws-history-1.3355142