“I dodged a bullet!”

That’s what a Down Under Visa client just told me! He was grateful when he realized how we saw through situation he’d found himself in due to a mistake with an NSO document made by a well-intentioned relative. His fiancée and de facto partner was still legally married. Relative organized a dodgy document (CENOMAR). We followed it up and found out it was fake.

It could have meant a visa refusal and a 3 year ban under Regulation 4020 of the Migration Regulations (PIC 4020). Yes, indeed. He dodged a very nasty bullet. Australian Visas, ie. partner visas, tourist visas, child visas, etc, there are rules about false statements and bogus documents that can mess up the plans for Australian Filipina couples well and truly.

And whilst we get a few visa clients being sneaky, most just make what you would call honest mistakes through naivety, we get the occasional one who tries to hide something. And they often get annoyed at us for finding it out or pressing them for more information. Well, bad luck! We can’t knowingly lodge applications with false information and we can’t look the other way. Apart from issues of professionalism (professional pride and ethics), we would risk losing our Migration Agents Registration if we did.

And we had one recently where the applicant had another “helpful” relative arrange for a marriage with some false information. He would have married, flown to Manila, and left for Australia all within a few hours….ie. not possible. It meant that the wedding wasn’t legal. And the Embassy would have seen this straight away.

And we get applicants with undeclared kids, misspelled names on official documents, kids declared as brothers, brothers declared as kids, forged documents, and on it goes. We feel more sorry for the ones who simply didn’t know what was really going on, but in the rules a fake document or statement is still fake whether it was done knowingly or not.

What’s the job of a Registered Migration Agent?

Some clients get the wrong idea. The occasional one says “I got a Migration Agent so the application will go faster”. Sorry, no. That’s not it at all! We have no power to make a visa application go faster, and in fact nobody does!

The job of a Migration Agent is to ensure you lodge an application that presents your case really well, and shows that you do in fact meet the criteria set out by the Migration Regulations for that particular visa. A Migration Agent is there to help you to get a visa instead of a refusal. And if they Migration Agent is doing his job properly, then he will tell you the absolute truth and will be confrontational sometimes. It’s not about being quick, or making the process effortless. It’s about getting visas.

And if that means telling you that your assumptions are wrong? We will do that! The strangest scenario is when we get a client who’s just had a refusal effectively try to tell us how to prepare a visa application!

If we find mistakes, we will tell you. Get annoyed, and we will still tell you. Get impatient, and we will still tell you. Tell us the story of the mate who got a visa “without any of this bull….”, and we will still tell you. Yes, the mate may have been lucky. But I bet we’ve been a whole lot luckier for a lot more clients over the years by being fastidious.

Do you want your Australian Visa Application to be granted so you can bring your Filipina lady to Australia? That’s what we do. We’ve been around for a while, and we do a great job. Let us help you, and be prepared to be told the truth often fairly bluntly without any BS, and at the end of it all you’ll be very glad that you did.