Australia Immigration Family Visa: Be Early or Be Left Out!

Australia Immigration: The Australian High Commission has set target of permitting families to join the migrant population in Australia for the year 2010 to 2011 at 168,700 locations according to their Migration Planning Program and 13,750 places for the Humanitarian Immigration Program.

Need Based Migration And Value (Of Humanity) Based Migration: The Australia immigration program comprises of two parts, one being the migration of skilled workers, their families and the Special Eligibility Stream of migrant workers. The other part is the Humanitarian part that allows refugees and other people to migrate and those who are in desperate need.

This forms an exceptionally balanced migration plan that conforms to the objectives of the Australian Government and has to be managed with utmost care. Various methods are available with the Government to curb the flow of families into the country.

Mechanisms in Place: These mechanisms include enhancing of the point-test pass marks, capping and queuing, deferring of application processing and priority processing. These systems aid the government to adhere to its commitment to its immigration standards that aim to maintain a perfect balance on the economic, humanitarian, social and environmental fronts.

When the limit of the set number of locations exceeds, there is a provision under the Act, where the Minister can introduce a “cap” on the influx of families of migrant workers and refuse visas to families waiting for the grant of family visas. This entails a longer queue of families to await their chance to obtain visas to join their loved ones in the country for the forthcoming year, since no visas can be issued during that year.

Queuing and Capping Flawlessly: With the ever-rising number of family visas piling up every year, a queue is bound to form under this category. The introduction of `Capping’ and `Queuing’ concepts is a close check on the number of people applying for family visas which limits the number of applications during a particular year.

Visa applications are scrutinized primarily in the order of lodgment at High Commissions across the world. In case, applicants have met the primary requisites, yet are subject to capping, they are allotted a queue date on which the application is evaluated. A queue date when given to the applicant is a firm date and there cannot be any deviations to this date in terms of being provided with a priority over other applicants.

There Is Always A Next Time: The provisions of Cap and Cease essentially indicate that when a cap has reached for a visa category, unprocessed applications are left as they are, work ceases completely on those applications and the files are closed. Such applications are considered as never having been filed with the High Commission.

The suspension of processing does not influence applications where the decision has already been taken before the date of the suspension notice. Priority processing is at the discretion of the concerned Minister who has the prerogative to approve applications on a priority basis.