Biswajit and Sarmin's son was diagnosed with autism as a toddler.
The Baniks are both qualified medical doctors.
They moved to Melbourne from Bangladesh in 2007
on an AusAID scholarship.
Nine years later and Sarmin is juggling a PhD in women's health
whilst working as a GP in suburban Melbourne.
Her husband Biswajit is a lecturer at Monash University.
Their son Arko is 12 years old.
With the help of special schooling and private tutoring
Arko has made progress.
Awesome, Arko. You did another one! Here you go, buddy.
He reads at a Year 2 level and is learning to cook.
The Baniks believe he will one day be able to work and live independently.
Great talking, Arko!
So that's the medical record.
Two years ago the Baniks decided to make Australia their home
and applied for permanent residency.
After a tense eight-month wait
their application was rejected for one reason -
Arko.
A significant cost is defined as over $40,000 in government services
throughout Arko's life.
The Baniks tried to appeal the decision
but in December last year
a government tribunal knocked them back.
They then appealed directly to the immigration minister, Peter Dutton,
who has been considering their case for nine months.
The stakes, for Arko, are high.
We have a person who has a PhD in men's health& .
and she's a practising general practitioner.
They are two people who are making
a massive contribution to the Australian society.
The practice of deporting disabled people
is more common than you would think.
Suresh Rajan says he sees two to three new cases every month.
What we're looking at there
is the commoditisation of a person with disability.
We are breaking down a person to a number
and that is completely inappropriate.
We've probably dealt with 18 to 20 cases in the last two years
and in not one of those cases has it come under the threshold of $40,000.
Please support me so I can give a better future to my son.
Thank you so much.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERS
The Banik family have found themselves
at the centre of a growing movement,
with hundreds of people joining protests around Melbourne
asking the Immigration Minister to let them stay.
This is unfair, this is ridiculous.
I have mild autism as well.
Mr Dutton, Minister for Immigration - will you deport me?
I'm an Australian citizen!
More than 37,000 people have signed an online petition.
What do you want? Arko?
- What do you want? - I want pizza.
While The Feed was filming with the Banik family last week,
they received a life-changing call from their lawyer.
Show me...
For the Baniks, this was a good outcome.
But Suresh Rajan says many more will never experience this moment.
All of that takes time and money
and, unfortunately, a lot of people are not able to afford that.
And the rights of people with disabilities
are exactly the same human rights that apply to everyone else.
And that is, not to be treated as a commodity but as a human being.
- Type Arko. - Arko.