Australian Immigration Daily News

A registered migration agent who wishes to remain unknown, has managed to get into Sydney Airport international departures area with her Australian passport and without a boarding pass on the weekend. 

The migration agent went to take her son through customs at Sydney Airport.  She was not flying with her son.  The migration agent went through the customs hall and placed her passport on the scanner, then entered the departures hall without a problem.  She did not complete a departures card and put it in the glass box as she was not departing.  

The migration agent then said goodbye to her son, and proceeded to leave the airport departures hall.  She tried to get out via the customs security gates.  A security guard said 'you shouldn't be here'.  The guard told the agent to tell border security that 'she had left her medication in the car' as the reason she needed to leave the departures hall.  The agent was let out by Border Force, but the Border Force held her passport as they assumed that she was coming back to join a flight.  The migration agent said 'I am not coming back and I just came in to see my son off.  I need my passport'.

By Liana Allan

The 2017 Global Estimate of Modern Slavery by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimated that at any one time in there are 24.9 million victims of forced labour, with 16 million people exploited in the private sector such as domestic work.

The granting of a subclass 600 visitor visa to a nanny being paid to work in a private home in Australia.  Is this the tip if the iceberg?

Is there anything that you can do when “Murphy’s Law” strikes, and everything that could possibly go wrong, does go wrong? 

What if a visa applicant is entirely “blameless”, and the applicant’s failure to satisfy a criterion for the grant of a visa is the result of circumstances entirely outside the applicant’s control? 

Do the Federal Courts have a general power to “dispense with the Migration Regulations” in order to prevent a harsh or unjust outcome? 

The Australian Migration Profession will undergo CPD changes from 1 January 2018

The Office of the MARA (OMARA) are changing the CPD framework for registered migration agents from 1 January 2018.  The OMARA have received applications from CPD providers who would like to offer CPD and the Practice Ready Programme from the 1 January 2018.  Those applications have not yet been decided.  No CPD provider has been approved to deliver training in 2018 at this stage.   

All current CPD activities will expire on 31 December 2017.

It is very important that you complete any CPD that you started in 2017 and your CPD points are reported to the OMARA before 31 December 2017. 

There's an interesting article in this morning's Sydney Morning Herald concerning a joint investigation by Fairfax Media and SBS Television into an alleged "pay-for-visa" fraud that allegedly involved visa applicants making payments to a company in return for job placements in regional areas, and the company's allegedly making payments to employers for providing jobs to applicants and sponsoring them.

The article can be found at this link: "Million-dollar visa scam leaves migrants $50,000 out of pocket, boss drives Porsche"

The article indicates that there will be further details about the investigation on SBS tonight (14 November) at 7:30 p.m. (on the "Viceland" program and at 11 p.m.