NEWS UPDATE: Regional visas – Migrants will face deportation if they move to other areas
The Australian Government has put in significant investment of $19.4 million at regional areas to support the new population plan by moving migrants to settle in regional areas.
It recently announced that it will be implementing strict measures on migrants seeking to move to other areas than the one they have been granted visas for.
REQUIREMENT TO STAY IN THE DESIGNATED AREA
Migrants who have been granted regional visas must stay in their designated areas otherwise they will have their visas cancelled and risk being deported.
This strong requirement stems from the main objective of the new population plan which is to encourage migrants to move to regional areas that have had persistent issues of labour shortage.
STRICT MEASURES
If the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) find that the migrants have moved to other areas before they get permanent residency, their visas will be cancelled.
“The visa also applies for work in that area. So, you can’t go and work somewhere else. It’s [the visa] actually linked to that specific area,” said Immigration Minister David Coleman.
The effect of such consequence would naturally make the migrant unlawful and quite frankly, it would be unlikely for them to obtain another similar visa and they would not be able to obtain permanent residency.
WRONG FOCUS OF THE GOVERNMENT?
On the contrary, Shadow Immigration Minister Shayne Neumann claims that the government has the wrong focus on the conduct of regional visas and that they should in fact give incentives to people to move into these areas – “the focus should be making sure that people move into these areas and build communities”.
“The current government’s problem at the moment, in terms of making sure that people go into regional communities is very much driven by the fact that they aren’t processing visas. We have 197,000 people on bridging visas – an increase of 38,000 in the last 12 months. If we have those visas processed, you can imagine more people would be in regional communities,” he added.
PROCESSING TIMES FOR REGIONAL VISAS
The government is considering increasing its resources into the processing of regional visas so that those visas can be processed faster, which they believe could act as an incentive for people to move into regional areas.
The current processing time for regional visas is approximately 7-8 months.
GETTING ASSISTANCE
If you have any questions or would like us to assist you with finding your desired pathways to migrate to regional areas, simply call one of our highly trained immigration lawyers at Agape Henry Crux on (02)-7200 2700 or email us to book in a time at info@ahclawyers.com