Australia orders out Chinese illegal immigrant - aged 104
(Agencies/China Daily)
Updated: 2005-03-09 09:47

MELBOURNE: The world's oldest illegal immigrant a 104-year-old Chinese woman has been ordered to leave Australia.

A special appeal hearing by the Immigration Department refused to overturn a decision to send Cui Yu Hu back to her native Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in Northwest China.

The Australian Government looks likely to intervene after airlines said they would refuse to fly Cui anywhere because of her age.

"The tribunal today affirmed the decision under review, finding that the visa applicant is not entitled to the grant of an aged parent resident's visa," said a spokeswoman for the Migration Review Tribunal.

Cui arrived on a 12-month visitor's visa in 1995 to visit her adopted daughter Motoko Otani who lives in the southern city of Melbourne.

"We intend to appeal to the minister directly," said Cui's friend, Chap Chow. He added: "The whole world is watching this case now."

Chow said he was "quietly confident" that Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone would intervene to allow the Cui to live out her days in Australia.

A spokesman for Vanstone intimated that a personal plea would result in a visa.

"Should a ministerial intervention request be lodged it will be given proper consideration," the spokesman said.

Cui has outlived all her family and friends in China. Her only surviving relative is the daughter she adopted during the Japanese occupation more than 60 years ago.

Motoko Otani, who is married, was an three-year-old orphan when Cui took her into her care.

If Cui refuses to leave, she could ultimately end up in detention.

The case is a further embarrassment for the Australian Immigration Department, which revealed last month it had held a schizophrenic German woman in a detention centre for 10 months believing she was an asylum-seeker.

Permanent resident Cornelia Rau, an air steward with national airline Qantas until 2000, had lived in Australia for all but four of her 39 years and was listed as a missing person when she was arrested and incarcerated, first in prison and then in an immigration detention centre.

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