Public Interest Criteria (PIC) 4020 Ban Waived and Partner Visa Granted

Partner Visa Applicant’s Background Story

The client did not know his USA tourist visa had been revoked in the year before he applied for another Australian visitor visa. As a result, in his Australian visitor visa, he answered “NO” to the question in relation to whether he had ever been canceled or refused a visa.
Intel information was received from the Department of Home Affairs in relation to his US visa and this adverse information pointing towards a refusal of PIC 4020 was put forward to the client. This was the first time he knew of his USA visa being revoked.
He made inquiries with the embassy and US immigration but received no clear answer as to why his visa had been revoked.
His visitor visa was subsequently refused based on PIC 4020(1) of providing false or misleading information. He also had a pending partner visa application already at this time which we advised would also be affected by this PIC 4020 refusal.
The client and his Australian partner had been separated for many years. The Australian partner is unable to get a visa to enter his home country, and he was not allowed to come to Australia. As such, they had been moving from country to country to be together.

PIC 4020 refusal means 3-year exclusion meaning the partner visa would inevitably be refused.
PIC 4020 carries a provision to waive if certain reasons exist.

We expedited their cases to ensure they could reunite as soon as possible by putting in submissions through to the Tribunal and to the Department, and also relodged another Visitor visa application for them.
Even though the client could not get answers from the US immigration on why his own visa was revoked, we conducted inquiries, investigations, and research which confirmed our suspicions that his US visa was revoked as a result of the blanket Trump policy targeting Mexicans.
Our arguments in relation to the PIC 4020 were:
o   The information was not material;
o   There was no purposeful falsity as it was revoked as a result of a blanket trump policy;
o   There were compelling interests affecting Australia;
o   There were compelling interests affecting an Australian person; and
o   There were compassionate interests affecting an Australian person.
A few months later, we received the grant for his temporary partner visa (First stage – Subclass 309) resulting from a successful waiver of PIC 4020 3 year exclusion period.