Episode #222: Visa Verses
“Recently, the Australian government has announced their new migration strategy roadmap, and specifically for student visas. There will be certain changes that will happen in the future,” explains Davin Hartanto, a registered migration agent who has been practicing immigration law for nearly 10 years. This is our second episode examining the issues that Myanmar nationals continue to face in trying to relocate to Australia following the coup; the first one featured Ko Ko Aung, a lawyer who has helped Burmese to navigate the country’s complex visa system to hopefully be able to settle there.
The proposed changes to student visas that Hartanto mentions will assess whether an applicant is a) a genuine student, and b) one who intends return to their country of origin after their education is completed. But the issue becomes much more complex when looking at students coming from places of conflict, such as Myanmar, where a return would likely pose a real risk to the student’s life. Hartanto notes that case officers refer to the Country Information Report, issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which assesses global risks, and can be a determinant in the visa application process. This is true not only for students, but anyone trying to enter the country under the Genuine Temporary Entrant criteria.
“It doesn't matter what you say or what documents you present to immigration, they will always have residual or subjective power in deciding it,” Hartanto says, adding that no explanation need be given for visa refusals, and at times it is not even clear if the case officers have reviewed the entire file being submitted. “And if we are talking about the situation in Myanmar, there is a trend that the refusal rate has gone up very high!” Citing information gleaned through the Freedom of Information Act, it appears that nearly 70% of all Burmese visa applicants are being rejected. In these cases, the burden of proof about the intent to return is on the applicant. “The discretionary power is too big,” he adds. “And [the applicants] don't have any right to appeal, because they are overseas. That goes silent, and there are no further follow ups after that.”
Hartanto says that he personally became aware of the rapid increase in declined visa applications from Myanmar about a year after the coup, and around that same time, Australia announced it would be prioritizing Myanmar nationals already in the country over new visa applicants. “When we look at what has happened or has transpired around that time, I'm not too sure whether this is coincidence, but I don't believe in coincidence,” he says. “That's my personal opinion.”
This issue fits into a wider narrative of Australian politics and immigration policy. Hartanto explains that the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is part of the present Labour Government, accused the previous administration, overseen by the Liberal National Coalition Government, of presiding over a broken system in desperate need of reform. More specifically, they criticized the fact that the type of visa someone has doesn’t always match their real purpose for being in the country, and charged that this was particularly true of the Genuine Temporary Entrant status visas. But the stricter procedures and guidelines they are trying to introduce has not yet been written into law, so people are still waiting to see exactly how their statements will translate into policy.
Looking next at the Temporary Protection visas, Hartanto acknowledges that more options were offered to applicants from other conflict zones, such as Ukraine, Hong Kong, and Afghanistan, than to Burmese applicants. He surmises this it might be because of some political reason or other, although it is not exactly clear to him as to what or why.
“The main issues that the Australian government is facing is that it's very hard to say that it's not politically influenced,” he says. “Because any decision that they make, obviously it goes through a political process. Any special visas or any special pathways that they will introduce for certain nationalities or for certain circumstance, they need to explain it in a Parliament session as to why the ministers do this, and why the ministers do that.”
Yet as frustrating as this can seem, Hartanto believes that it presents a silver lining in the form of greater activism, which can then impact policy. “As much as we hope, and really want Australian government to do more, they're limited by the migration program quota [and] all these processes are really driven by the political process,” he says in closing. “I understand and appreciate that the issues of immigration law is never as simple as it seems… My message to listeners is to unite, to keep raising this awareness, keep talking about it, keep sharing experiences amongst others, keep helping each other… As far as we can maintain this movement to get ourselves heard by the authority, by the current government, or by the legislature, then, hopefully one day, we can look back and say that, okay, we've tried.”