Australian Immigration Daily News

Suppose a client contacts you and asks for your help in challenging the cancellation of a student visa. 

Are there any good arguments you can make to salvage the student’s situation? 

What if the student visa was cancelled on the basis of alleged non-compliance with the dreaded Condition 8516, which is in the following terms: 

Is it utterly futile to try to overturn a decision made personally by the Minister to cancel a person’s visa on character grounds? 

If you have been following the discussion of visa cancellation cases on this blog, that may certainly appear to be the case. 

For a short time, it seemed that a small window might be opening through the decisions of Judge Logan of the Federal Court in the Eden and Stretton cases.   In each of those cases, Justice Logan had essentially concluded that the exercise of the visa cancellation power was legally unreasonable when it was “disproportionate”, or, in His Honour’s “pithy phrase”, when the visa cancellation power was used in a way that was analogous to using a sledgehammer to crack a note.

What will the consequences be if a Standard Business Sponsor breaches its sponsorship obligations and exploits its employees?

A decision that was handed down on 8 June 2016 by Justice Buchanan of the Federal Court in the case of Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v Hallmark Computer Pty Ltd (2016) FCA 678 suggests the answer. The case also provides a cautionary tale to sponsors of 457 visa holders and should provide a strong deterrent message:

If you breach your sponsorship obligations, you run the risk of paying very heavy monetary penalties!

Do Registered Migration Agents really add value to the process of preparing a visa application? 

Are they really worth the extra cost? 

Since most visa applications are now made over the Internet, do you really need a migration professional to complete the application for you? 

Is it possible successfully to challenge the cancellation of a student visa? 

If so, on what basis? 

Let’s take a case that was decided at the end of May, Singh v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2016) FCA 611 (31 May 2016) as an example.