‘Valued worker’ Jaswant Singh to lose work rights, faces deportation

Jaswant Singh is likely to have his work rights revoked while his appeal is being heard in the Federal Court.

Jaswant Singh

Jaswant Singh Source: Supplied

Jaswant Singh and his South Australian employer are making the last-ditch efforts to prevent the Immigration Department from forcing the Indian migrant to leave the country.

Employer Dino Musolino says Jaswant’s skills are essential for his business.

“If he is forced to leave the country, we will be devastated.. He will be devastated.”

“We are not going to accept if he is told to leave, we will continue to work through this,” Dino told SBS Punjabi.

34-year-old Jaswant came to Australia in 2009 to study horticulture. He has been working at Dino’s Hi-Tech Hydroponics since then.

He says his employer-nominated visa application was rejected due to a “procedural technicality”.

“In 2012 the South Australian accrediting body for horticulture stopped certifying individual skills and rather began issuing advice, but because my visa application was filed before 2012, the department wouldn’t process my case without the certificate,” said Jaswant.
Jaswant Singh
Jaswant Singh working at a farm in Virginia, South Australia. Source: Supplied
His appeal for ministerial intervention has been declined by the Immigration minister in November 2016.

A spokesperson of the Immigration Department told Fairfax Media that the minister intervenes in unique and exception cases only.

“The minister considers each case on its own merits and only intervenes in a relatively small number of cases which present unique and exception circumstance.”

He has now filed an appeal against the department’s decision in the Federal Court.

For the last three years, he has been able to work on bridging visa E. However, since filing the appeal in the court, he has been notified that his work rights will be withdrawn after January 5, 2017.

This, he says, will cripple him and his employer.

“The hearing of my appeal in the court may take 9-10 months or even more. How will I survive without being able to work for so long. My employer will also suffer as there’s no one who can do  my job in my absence.”

Jaswant says the case officers from the Immigration Department tried to pressurise him to leave Australia and apply for a visa from India.
Jaswant
Source: Supplied
He says he isn’t prepared to go back to India.

“I have worked here for the past seven years. I have not done anything wrong. This is injustice. I hope the court will undo the wrong done by the department,” he said.

His employer, Dino Musolino says it's very difficult to get local workers with skills required for similar jobs.  

While Dino is supporting Jaswant in his bid to remain in the country, others in the industry have also thrown their weight behind Singh.

He hopes he will finally get justice from the court.

“In the last seven years, I must have paid over $50,000 in tax to the government. I have never been a burden on the taxpayer funded system here, all I am asking is give me a fair go,” says Jaswant.

 


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By Shamsher Kainth

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‘Valued worker’ Jaswant Singh to lose work rights, faces deportation | SBS Punjabi