Australian Immigration Daily News

How is the Office of the Migration Agents  Registration Authority to interpret the concept of “fit and proper person” under section 290 of the Migration Act? 

Is it possible to become a Registered Migration Agent even if you have a history of criminal convictions in Australia? 

Suppose a conviction is “spent”? What does that term mean? And can a “spent” conviction be taken into account when the MARA considers an application from a person seeking to become a RMA? 

There has been another hugely significant decision from the Full Court on the question of whether a visa

applicant will be held responsible for a fraud carried out by a migration agent. 

The decision was handed down in the case of Gill v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2016) FCAFC 142 (17 October 2016).  

Is there any way to get your client out from under a section 48 bar? 

For example, suppose your client has gone to another migration agent, and that agent has submitted an application for a skilled visa that is based on a fraudulent skills assessment? And the skilled visa is a visa that your client could never have satisfied the eligibility criteria? 

Is there any remedy in this situation? 

Do you ever feel when you are dealing with the Department that you and your client are trapped in a “Catch-22” situation? 

That whatever path you take will somehow be said to be “wrong”?  That you’re presented with a range of 2 choices, and that both of them are adverse to your client, in different ways? That no matter what,

“the Department always wins, and your client loses”? That without having any desire to do so, you have just stepped through the looking glass, and you have joined “Alice in Wonderland”? 

Should a person be prohibited from coming to Australia on a speaking tour because of bigoted, hate-filled statements that he has made in the past? 

Is the Department doing its job when it comes to assessing applicants for visitor visas against the character test? 

These issues are presented by an article that appeared late last week in the Sydney Morning Herald, which appeared under the headline: “Pakistani scholar ordered home from Australian tour after anti-Semitic video emerges”.