Sukhdeep Kaur with her husband Jaswinder Singh and daughter, Ravneet Garcha. Kaur cannot return to India to visit her mother, who is undergoing cancer treatment, without becoming unable to return.
“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 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.