Australian Immigration Daily News

What is the consequence if the Secretary of the Department does not forward to the Tribunal all documents that are relevant to a review, and the review applicant conducts her/his case on the mistaken assumption that a certain critically important document is before the Tribunal when it is actually not before the Tribunal?

Does that amount to jurisdictional error which would warrant the quashing of an AAT decision that is adverse to the applicant?

A recent decision of the Full Court, BBS15 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2017) FCAFC 61 (13 April 2017) tells us that it is.

How strict is the mandatory visa cancellation regime under section 501(3A) of the Migration Act? 

Very! 

How difficult is it to challenge the Minister's decision not to revoke the mandatory cancellation of a visa? 

Should there be more, or easier, ways for unlawful non-citizens to regularise their status in Australia? 

According to the most recent compilation of data that has been published by the Department, Australian Migration Trends 2014 – 2015, it was estimated that there were approximately 62,000 unlawful non-citizens in Australia as at 30 June 2015. This publication states that this number of unlawful non-citizens had remained fairly constant at that number since 2013. 

The Migration Trends publication states that the visa categories with the highest number of “over stayers” are visitor (by far the highest proportion of unlawful non-citizens, about 44,000 or 75%), followed by former holders of student visas and working holiday visas. 

How important is it to comply with deadlines fixed by the Tribunal for providing information in support of a visa application?

And how important is it to communicate with the Tribunal if it appears that there may be difficulty in meeting the deadline allowed by the Tribunal?

The answer, as illustrated by a decision that was handed down by the Federal Circuit Court on 5 April 2017, Singh v Minister for Immigration & Anor (2017) FCCA 670 is “incredibly”.

On 23 February 2017, amendments to the Migration Act 1958 relating to the cancellation of visas on character grounds came into force.

The amending legislation is entitled the Migration Amendment (Character Cancellation Consequential Provisions) Act 2017.

As the name of this legislation indicates, the purpose of these amendments was to introduce further changes to the Migration Act “consequential to” an earlier amendment that came into force in December 2014, which was the Migration Amendment (Character and General Visa Cancellation) Act 2014.