Australian Immigration Daily News

There has been another extremely important decision from the Full Court on the issue of visa cancellation on character grounds.

This decision was handed down by the Full Court yesterday, 13 June 2017, and just appeared on Austlii this morning: BCR16 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2017) FCAFC 96 (13 June 2017).

The case defines a new possible basis for challenging a decision made personally by the Minister or Assistant Minister to refuse to revoke the mandatory cancellation of a visa on character grounds.

In case you may have missed it, we are providing links to some news stories that appeared over the Queen's Birthday long weekend in the Australian media concerning further proposed changes to Australia's citizenship that are likely to be introduced into Parliament in the near future.

Here's a link to a story describing the changes, and here is another link to an article that provides some critical comments on the proposal.

These changes go beyond  the proposed changes to the Australian Citizenship Act that were announced by the government in late April. Those changes would increase the required period that an applicant for citizenship must be a permanent resident of Australia from the current 12 months to 4 years; would require applicants to demonstrate a "competent" level of proficiency in English; would change or, in the government's words, "strengthen" the citizenship test to require applicants to demonstrate understanding and acceptance of "Australian values"; and would require applicants to provide evidence that they have become "integrated" into the Australian community.

Migration Alliance has been contacted by Associate Professor Rebekah Doley of Bond University for assistance in notifying RMAS about a very important study that she is undertaking to assess the stresses that RMAs may experience when working with trauma-affected client populations.

Professor Doley describes the purpose of the study as follows:

"Of the approximately 6021 Migration Agents (RMAs) registered nationally, many will have worked at some time with trauma-exposed clients. I am looking for your support to understand how to build resilience in RMAs working in these difficult settings.

At AusSkill, we are committed in assisting you and your clients to fulfil the training benchmark requirements.

With the new changes being made to the 457 visa, we can anticipate a much stricter criteria and requirements.

As such, we strongly advise migration agents and lawyers to draw attention to their clients to fulfil their Training Benchmark requirements in anticipation of the upcoming changes.

Remember that famous phrase “Just when it seemed that it was safe to go back into the water……”

Likewise, it seemed based on a decision that was made by Justice Collier of the Federal Court in the case of Tesic v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2016) FCA 1465 last December that there might just be the possibility of a new ground for challenging a decision by the Minister under section 501CA(4) of the Migration Act,  not to revoke the cancellation of a visa on character grounds.

In other words, that the door to challenging cancellation decisions might have been propped open just a tiny, tiny crack, and that there might be a new avenue open to visa holders that would enable them to contest successfully decisions by the Minister to cancel.