Australian Immigration Daily News

Author:

JUSTIN K. RICKARD

B.A LL.B M.A (SYD.) M.M.I.A

SOLICITOR & BARRISTER & REGISTERED MIGRATION AGENT # 97-90625

“Migration is not a confined physical space with borders, but an eternal idea of a far better life that lives in people’s hearts”

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 30 August 2014 is promoting a book of “confessions”, to be released today, by a former Afghan people smuggler whose involvement led to the drowning of 94 “boat-people” on their way to Australia in June 2012.

In the very first sentence of the article the author refers to “people smuggling agents trying to make money”. Later he casually refers to their “business” and later still to the complete disappearance of a key people smuggler after the deadly disaster at sea. Not once does he refer to any sense of legal obligations in his country or ours, or to being bound by ethical duties.

This book highlights the very worst extremes of migration – international criminals whose reckless actions kill people, devastate families and communities and ransack all that could be great about migration.

At the very opposite end of the Australian migration spectrum are our registered migration agents bound by laws and ethics and belonging to a professional community. Here are 11 benefits visa applicants can receive when they engage  Australian registered migration agents for their migration:

1.    CHANCES OF SUCCESS INCREASE

Everything is easy until it gets hard. Ignorance is bliss (not always true). Knowledge is power. How could anyone honestly know something is easy if they have never tried? You take the risk if you want to find out the hard way. Why would so many immigration lawyers and registered migration agents exist if it was all so easy? Think about it. We fill a real need in the community.

Registered migration agents by law need to be familiar with a vast range of laws including the Australian Migration Act, Migration Regulations & Policy all total many thousands of pages. This is in addition to the plethora of policy guidelines, Ministerial Directions, Court judgments of the Migration Review Tribunal, Refugee Review Tribunal and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Federal and High Court Decisions.

Why would a migrant want anyone to help them if they did not know or care about these laws? That’s akin to asking a hospital orderly to operate on you rather than a licensed and experienced surgeon. Crazy.

2.    AVOID MULTITDE OF STRESSES

Most people are guilty of not realizing that migration is in general very stressful and emotionally painful, especially if unsuccessful. These normal stresses are multiplied when an unregistered agent is involved with all their potential trickery, misleading and deceptive behaviour. A migrant reminds them of a T-shirt my daughter loves “My Daddy is an ATM”. The migrant is just a source of money, unnecessary whenever the money stops.

The unfortunate migrant thinks they are alone, abnormal and or the first one to ever feel such stresses. However a quick read of these online articles makes us all realize a little more about how normal migration stress is. Migration can be very hard but it can be very much harder if an unregistered agent is involved in controlling the process:

http://www2.fiu.edu/~sol/SSHD_Journal_Immigration_Stress.pdf

http://apt.rcpsych.org/content/10/1/13.full

http://www.attachmentacrosscultures.org/impact/#5

http://bmb.oxfordjournals.org/content/69/1/129.full

http://theconversation.com/getting-the-facts-about-refugee-and-migrant-mental-health-in-australia-18902

Migration stress is not an unusual or new phenomenon. There has been a lot of research in this area and professional counselling is available to supplement the help migrants might normally obtain from friends & family, as well as the professional migration advice a migrant can receive from a registered migration agent. This sort of support is hardly likely to come from an unregistered agent.

3.    AVOID THE CRAZINESS OF HAVING NO ONE TO TALK TO

Human beings are by nature social. An unregistered migration agent will do anything to avoid talking to a migrant, once they have their money. In the people smuggler book article, the author explains how they take the migrants’ mobile phones off them so they cannot contact anyone. Not only does this endanger them but, even before that, it maximises their stress. On the contrary, registered migration agents would strongly advise migrants to be in touch and listen to their professional advice, as they are genuinely here to help.

In addition migrants should work through the migration process with friends and family and, where possible, migrate with family. They can’t do that if an unregistered agent has taken their phone off them and locked them up until they get on a leaky boat!

4.    SAVE MONEY

Some people think that without a registered migration agent they are saving money. The same thinking often applies when doing car or home repairs themselves; until it gets hard of course. Then they are stuck in the middle of a major problem and call for professional help only to find it costs just as much, if not more, than getting help in the first place. Plus the professional can often find ways of saving them money that the person never even thought of.

An unregistered migration agent is likely to provide fraudulent & misleading documents which not only prejudice the whole case but lead to wasted time and more expense rectifying the inevitable mess.

Many of our clients have had Australian visas refused because they did not get licensed professional help in the first place, for example, and not only lost application fees but had to pay to fly back home overseas and reapply from their home country. So if you add in the airfares, relocation costs, the inevitable need to finally get professional help from a registered migration agent, time away from friends and or family in Australia, loss of opportunities here and loss of work, there are no savings there! 

5.    AVOID THE FALSE PERCEPTION THAT THE GOVERNMENT LIKES DEALING WITH UNREGISTERED AGENTS OR UNREPRESENTED MIGRANTS

Anyone would be forgiven in thinking the Australian government does not mind dealing with unregistered agents or unrepresented migrants. However, how often has anyone ever found dealing with the government easy?

All over the world citizens find unlicensed people and government bureaucracies frustrating, annoying and insulting. It may have something to do with their virtual unaccountability, their lack of relevant training, skill and experience or maybe, to be honest, they just do not care!

Here is a sample of an email from a Mauritian client which shows how an unrepresented migrant can be dealt with by the immigration dept. (and this is a just a small example of 1,000’s of matters we have seen like this and even worse):

“Please note that this morning I phoned them regarding if they have received the documents we sent them. Unfortunately my case officer Mr “JL” was not there. The staff who spoke to me told me that there is not any documents received apart the medical reports. He said that they did not receive any 956 form. The staff said that as per the normal procedure the case officer will work on the file after the 28 days given to us to completing all back up docs. 

Unfortunately we don't have any notification by them to confirm that they have well received all the requesting documents sent by email. He also said that if ever there is any missing document they will send us another request to ask for same.  Unfortunately…”

Can you sense the hopelessness in this situation? Really, a huge bureaucracy with offices all over the world and the ability to hide behind a phone system and internet system designed for anonymity is not only patronizing and offensive but, in the end, more likely to lead to an even greater lack of accountability.

A registered migration agent has services on the other hand that are designed & tailored to help a migrant become a REAL migrant that REALLY lives in Australia and is TAKEN SERIOUSLY by people who matter (like employers, family and the government during processing) -- and never have be treated like just a file # with contempt or carelessness again or to fail in an application.

After all, registered migration agents not only run a professional service that must look after its clients to prosper, but all registered migration agents hold an annually renewable license that keeps them accountable by law at the very least.

6.    IT IS QUICKER WITH A REGISTERD MIGRATION AGENT

 This is often true. Whilst registered migration agents get no special favours from the government, we just know exactly what is wanted and needed for a potentially quicker visa approval.

7.    7. VISA APPLICATIONS ARE TOO HARD FOR UNREGISTERED AGENTS

An unregistered agent will often focus on what look like easy applications – student and tourist visas at the bottom rung of the migration ladder potentially leading to citizenship with proper planning. Yet failure at this level is easy too and also can damage a migrant’s reputation with the immigration dept. for many, many years.

8.    THERE IS SO MUCH DANGER WITH HAVING A VISA REFUSAL OR CANCELLATION THAT IT IS WORTH THE COST OF USING A REGISTERED MIGRATION AGENT

One client of ours was stuck back in the UK with a 3 year re-entry ban because she believed some lies told to her before she applied. The government does not quickly forget visa refusals or the reasons for them. In fact, they use these refusals to generate more refusals as they are on record for many years individually and are the basis for statistics. They will certainly look at any migrant’s record when they make another application and they will rarely make a decision with a clean and unbiased mind. You can bet on that.

Another thing a migrant can bet on is that the unregistered agent just won’t be around any longer when they need to reapply.

Additionally if a migrant has to wait in Australia for an appeal to a tribunal, this can take years as well. And, even after an appeal is won appeal there can be many more months of delays waiting for the immigration department to confirm that and grant a visa.

All in all, a previous refusal never helps, which is yet another reason to stay well away from unregistered agents.  

9.    MIGRANTS ARE RARELY BETTER OFF JUST DOING WHAT THEIR FRIENDS DO

Advice to a migrant: Don’t listen to dinner party rumours, gossip and just the advice of friends and family about visas: no two cases are alike, so get professional advice from a registered migration agent.

Currently there a bit of an online craze for young people called “tombstoning”. They jump off high cliffs and the like into the water, seeing if they can land straight up like a tombstone. Peer group pressure forces them to take unbelievable risks and some of them are now paralysed forever.

Parallel to this sort of foolish and dangerous behaviour can be found in all sorts of people, especially in vulnerable migrants overseas when they do not have ready access to a registered migration agent.

10. A REGISTERED MIGRATION AGENT DOES NOT LEAVE A MIGRANT’S ENTIRE FUTURE RELIANT ON INTERNET RESEARCH

Just because a migrant can Google the date of Black Tuesday doesn’t mean they understand why the Great Depression happened or how it compares to our recent economic slump. And sorting the wheat from the abundant online chaff requires more than simply evaluating the credibility of the source ... It demands the knowledge of facts that can be used to independently verify or discredit the information on the screen……Or you can (try and) rely on Google for legal migration advice .

So here’s a principle for thinking in a digital world, in two parts: First, acquire a base of fact knowledge in any domain in which you want to perform well. This base supplies the essential foundation for building skills & knowledge but it can’t be 100% outsourced to a search engine.

Second: Take advantage of computers’ invariant memory, but also the brain’s elaborative memory. Computers are great when you want to store information that shouldn’t change — say, the date and time of that appointment next week.

A computer (unlike your brain, or mine) won’t misremember the time of the appointment as 3 PM instead of 2 PM. But brains (especially brains of experienced professionals in a specialized field of knowledge like Australian migration) are the superior choice when you want information subject to vast change, like immigration laws and policies which endlessly change. Just look here to see this is true - http://www.immi.gov.au/legislation/amendments/.

A migrant’s decision to step beyond Google and unregistered agents get professional help from a registered migration agent will always be a wise one!