# Do many visa's get rejected?



## melandabdul (Sep 1, 2012)

Just wondering...do many real, legitimate visa's get rejected? Does anyone on here know of anyone who had their visa rejected?


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## MrCAMEL (Jun 21, 2012)

I am sure many visas get rejected.
I assume you mean PMV 300 visa that you applied for. I read this a long time ago and spent a long time searching for it again. Just found it.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...o5BJf8&sig=AHIEtbQm8xVwUXJHuIo6KCoLQdxIoyQIKA

It is interesting. Every country's details for PMV applicants (2006-2011). From your Ghana there were 143 approvals and 24 rejections. From my Mongolia there were 13 approvals and no rejections. There was only 1 withdrawn application from Chad and Mauritania. Interesting!


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## melandabdul (Sep 1, 2012)

MrCAMEL said:


> I am sure many visas get rejected.
> I assume you mean PMV 300 visa that you applied for. I read this a long time ago and spent a long time searching for it again. Just found it.
> 
> https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...o5BJf8&sig=AHIEtbQm8xVwUXJHuIo6KCoLQdxIoyQIKA
> ...


Wow...thanks so much for this information...indeed interesting and very helpful to calm the nerves!!! So kind of you


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## abby603 (Nov 9, 2012)

Amazing information, thank you very much!


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## CollegeGirl (Nov 10, 2012)

Yes, thank you for that, MrCAMEL! That actually makes me feel a lot better. Only 55 refused out of 1028 applications from the US... that really gives me hope.


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## Gemini (Sep 9, 2010)

Thanks for sharing the information


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## Adventuress (Jan 8, 2012)

Excellent work, MrCAMEL!

The entire discussion is also quite an interesting read, in particular this part:



> Senator KROGER: I have a couple of further matters. Firstly, you talked about once they *come in under the proposed marriage visas and then move onto the temporary visa*. Are there figures in there in terms of how many temporary visas are declined? Is it a very small number?
> 
> Dr Southern : I wrote the number down last night. *Less than one per cent of the 820s are refused*.


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## missjaay (Nov 30, 2012)

Less than 1% of the 820s are refused = 99% of 820s are accepted! Woo hoo!!! That's such a great confidence booster!!


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## Zamaussie (Jan 16, 2012)

MrCAMEL said:


> I am sure many visas get rejected.
> I assume you mean PMV 300 visa that you applied for. I read this a long time ago and spent a long time searching for it again. Just found it.
> 
> https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...o5BJf8&sig=AHIEtbQm8xVwUXJHuIo6KCoLQdxIoyQIKA
> ...


Interesting indeed......2006 - 2011 only 18 granted and 3 rejected....I guess few people apply for this type of visa from my home country.
Thanks for the infor.


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## Adventuress (Jan 8, 2012)

missjaay said:


> Less than 1% of the 820s are refused = 99% of 820s are accepted! Woo hoo!!! That's such a great confidence booster!!


Absolutely, but we have to remember that this is only 820s that are lodged after 300 (PMV) - so the applicant would've already been through a somewhat rigid verification process.


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## missjaay (Nov 30, 2012)

Wow.. I must have mis-read.. I'm going straight for 820 so does anyone know what the acceptance/rejection rates are like?



Adventuress said:


> Absolutely, but we have to remember that this is only 820s that are lodged after 300 (PMV) - so the applicant would've already been through a somewhat rigid verification process.


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## louiseb (Dec 22, 2012)

oh wow Malta never had a refused application, There,s always a first lol.


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## melandabdul (Sep 1, 2012)

Louise it goes off the nationality of your passport,
not where you are residing. So if I recall correctly you should look up UK stats.


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## louiseb (Dec 22, 2012)

melandabdul said:


> Louise it goes off the nationality of your passport,
> not where you are residing. So if I recall correctly you should look up UK stats.


yes this is true too much excitement today, i re-looked and to be honest i dont think 20 applicants out 2036 is too bad lol. melandabdul what would i do without you lol. Thank you.


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## MarkNortham (Dec 19, 2012)

The biggest issue with 300, 820/801 and 309/100 visa applications is relationship evidence - the requirements vary widely from post to post, something that really should not exist.

You'll find that a far larger portion of student visas are refused, primarily because of the forward-looking (guessing!) Genuine Temporary Entrant and Genuine Student requirements - these nasty rules basically put DIAC In the position of a fortune teller, deciding what an applicant "might do" if allowed to come to Australia, and allowing a refusal based ONLY on this guess regarding future activity. Some of the toughest cases we've had to fight come down to this sort of thing - not unlike the movie "Minority Report" where people are thrown in jail based on what they might do in the future. How do you prove what someone might or might not do in the future? In the end, it all comes down to the evidence you can show and what you can claim it represents, etc.


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## melandabdul (Sep 1, 2012)

MarkNortham said:


> The biggest issue with 300, 820/801 and 309/100 visa applications is relationship evidence - the requirements vary widely from post to post, something that really should not exist.
> 
> You'll find that a far larger portion of student visas are refused, primarily because of the forward-looking (guessing!) Genuine Temporary Entrant and Genuine Student requirements - these nasty rules basically put DIAC In the position of a fortune teller, deciding what an applicant "might do" if allowed to come to Australia, and allowing a refusal based ONLY on this guess regarding future activity. Some of the toughest cases we've had to fight come down to this sort of thing - not unlike the movie "Minority Report" where people are thrown in jail based on what they might do in the future. How do you prove what someone might or might not do in the future? In the end, it all comes down to the evidence you can show and what you can claim it represents, etc.


It is so wonderful to have someone like you Mark on this forum. The input from an immigration agent who has dealt these issues at the cold face is invaluable to us and I thank you for your input.

I do find the whole process even from my personal experience of subclass 300 to be very subjective which I think leads to great issues but I am not sure how such a process can be made more objective.


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## Boboa (Mar 24, 2009)

MarkNortham said:


> The biggest issue with 300, 820/801 and 309/100 visa applications is relationship evidence - the requirements vary widely from post to post, something that really should not exist.
> 
> You'll find that a far larger portion of student visas are refused, primarily because of the forward-looking (guessing!) Genuine Temporary Entrant and Genuine Student requirements - these nasty rules basically put DIAC In the position of a fortune teller, deciding what an applicant "might do" if allowed to come to Australia, and allowing a refusal based ONLY on this guess regarding future activity. Some of the toughest cases we've had to fight come down to this sort of thing - not unlike the movie "Minority Report" where people are thrown in jail based on what they might do in the future. How do you prove what someone might or might not do in the future? In the end, it all comes down to the evidence you can show and what you can claim it represents, etc.


So your proposal is to assume everyone is genuine until they actually do something. Instead of preventing sorting out the mess afterwards? I have an issue with calling rules and regulations placed as "nasty". I have been in countries where lax rules and stupidly weak immigration policy resulted in community segmentation, crime and civil unrest.

The main purpose of the department is to filter out those that might posses any risk, while some genuine people might be affected, I would take that risk for the larger benefit.

Fortune teller or not, DIAC and officers of the department are doing the best they professionally could do, and they are doing an amazing job. Both legally and professionally. It has nothing to do with minority report, here people have the choice to study somewhere else as well as appeal to a plethora of organisations both independently or using services of many people who make money of these "rules" because these rules in first place placed them as professionals responsible of being the focal point of contact.


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## MarkNortham (Dec 19, 2012)

I accept your point - I don't assume everyone is innocent or guilty - both would be obviously extreme positions.

My concern is when government departments set up vague and imprecise rules, then apply them in an inconsistent way. The Genuine Temporary Entrant and Genuine Student rules can be nasty, in my opinion, in that I've seen them applied very inconsistently, and that's not fair or right. The whole premise is what you "might" do, and I've personally seen these rules applied in a wildly inconsistent manner.

So to clarify, perhaps it's not the rules that are unfair, but it's the inconsistent application of the rules that lead to what I believe are unfair decisions.


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## MarkNortham (Dec 19, 2012)

melandabdul said:


> It is so wonderful to have someone like you Mark on this forum. The input from an immigration agent who has dealt these issues at the cold face is invaluable to us and I thank you for your input.
> 
> I do find the whole process even from my personal experience of subclass 300 to be very subjective which I think leads to great issues but I am not sure how such a process can be made more objective.


Glad to be here, and thanks for the kind words. DIAC's job is not easy or simple, and there is always a fair degree of subjectivity involved. As I was discussing with Boboa, the issue I believe lies in what I see as inconsistent application of the rules. And the more subjective a rule is, the more room there is for inconsistent application. And that's exactly what makes DIAC's job difficult. Plus, DIAC's got to deal with a large number of people who will exploit any opportunity to "game" the immigration system in Australia. That can lead to a somewhat defensive posture towards (some) visa applicants, and then they start going down the slippery slope of determining which applicants and which applications are "high risk" and therefore deserving of a higher level of scrutiny. I'm not talking about the basic low risk (ETA) countries vs high risk (the rest), but something on a much more personal level involving the personal attributes of an applicant.

Of course the ethnic issues come into play here too - for instance, Form 80 as of 4 weeks ago now asks each person if they are of Russian ancestry. Previously, only questions about "Arabic" ancestry and whether or not they used a particular Chinese code to present their name were included in this area. Why add Russians? And would that include Russian only or go back to the Soviet Union days? And how far back does one's "ancestry" have to be to qualify to answer yes to this on this official form? And what will this info be used for now and in the future? Does a positive response heighten one's risk profile in immigration processing? All valid questions, in my opinion, when a government starts asking about someone's ethnic background with no reason given on a form used to determine entry or not into a country.

DIAC overall does a very good job at a very difficult task. And in some cases, especially those involving an Australian sponsor, there is an appeal/review opportunity - the Migration Review Tribunal (MRT). But for many others, such as offshore student visa applicants, there is no appeal or review - the decision is final and no appeal or review is allowed, and that concerns me especially when overly subjective or vague reasons are given.


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## louiseb (Dec 22, 2012)

.


> Of course the ethnic issues come into play here too - for instance, Form 80 as of 4 weeks ago now asks each person if they are of Russian ancestry. Previously, only questions about "Arabic" ancestry


 Yes why do they ask about arabic ancestry i could never understand why this question was being asked, it almost sounds raciest... I was asked this question and although i put NO my father is of Maltese nationality, yes our language is made up of arabic but they still wanted a letter stating that the Maltese language was a language of its own and no way linked to Arab countries. Could never understand this, i think they believe that Malta is an arabic country and its not.


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## melandabdul (Sep 1, 2012)

louiseb said:


> . Yes why do they ask about arabic ancestry i could never understand why this question was being asked, it almost sounds raciest... I was asked this question and although i put NO my father is of Maltese nationality, yes our language is made up of arabic but they still wanted a letter stating that the Maltese language was a language of its own and no way linked to Arab countries. Could never understand this, i think they believe that Malta is an arabic country and its not.


I may be wrong but I think they are wanting to see if there is any possible terrorist link in terms of the Arabic question on form 80.


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## Adventuress (Jan 8, 2012)

melandabdul said:


> I may be wrong but I think they are wanting to see if there is any possible terrorist link in terms of the Arabic question on form 80.


I've always thought that these sorts of questions had to do with naming systems in those languages, i.e. on Arabic documents the full name always appears, including the father's and grandfather's names. So it would make sense for them to ask for this level of information since Form 80 is to enable them to make security checks within the home country of the applicant.

However, I did always wonder why they weren't already including a question about Russian names, because the Russian system does commonly use the patronymic (derived from the father's name) in everyday documents and communication, and this does not count as a middle name in the English system.

It is curious to me why they're only starting to ask about this now as the Russian naming system has never been a secret.


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## melandabdul (Sep 1, 2012)

Adventuress said:


> I've always thought that these sorts of questions had to do with naming systems in those languages, i.e. on Arabic documents the full name always appears, including the father's and grandfather's names. So it would make sense for them to ask for this level of information since Form 80 is to enable them to make security checks within the home country of the applicant.
> 
> However, I did always wonder why they weren't already including a question about Russian names, because the Russian system does commonly use the patronymic (derived from the father's name) in everyday documents and communication, and this does not count as a middle name in the English system.
> 
> It is curious to me why they're only starting to ask about this now as the Russian naming system has never been a secret.


Wow, ok you win!!! Iol. Your reason sounds pretty good to me.


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## Adventuress (Jan 8, 2012)

melandabdul said:


> Wow, ok you win!!! Iol. Your reason sounds pretty good to me.


Haha 

But I'm still wondering why it's only at the end of 2012 that they've decided that they need to know Russian patronymics  So maybe there is something about ethnic profiling going on, although for what reason Russia is involved I couldn't even guess. The other curious thing is that many other cultures and countries have their own naming systems which diverge from the "norm" of the English sydtem (or rather, from what an Australian would expect), so why aren't they included too? Yes, of course it would be overkill to include even ten, but there must be something else going on here that they've chosen these three in particular... Perhaps you're not too far away from the truth!


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## Boboa (Mar 24, 2009)

Adventuress said:


> I've always thought that these sorts of questions had to do with naming systems in those languages, i.e. on Arabic documents the full name always appears, including the father's and grandfather's names. So it would make sense for them to ask for this level of information since Form 80 is to enable them to make security checks within the home country of the applicant.
> 
> However, I did always wonder why they weren't already including a question about Russian names, because the Russian system does commonly use the patronymic (derived from the father's name) in everyday documents and communication, and this does not count as a middle name in the English system.
> 
> It is curious to me why they're only starting to ask about this now as the Russian naming system has never been a secret.


You are correct . For example often a person in Russia will be called Sasha Vladimirovich, where the second name is his fathers name and not his last name. DIAC is trying to capture this in the documents as it leads to possible fraud and difficulties when applicants try to obtain documents later (think drivers license).

While in Arabic names often a person would have five or four names, example Mr Ahmad Najaf Bander Saed. Where the system goes First name, fathers name, grandfathers name, last name. Again this is very different to English or Western system where the names would be presumed first , middle and last names.

Similar situation with Chinese names. Not all countries are included simply because if Sevareid reasons, there are not many applicants to change a for for them, the system didn't catch up yet, DIAC and ASIO didn't run into issues checking background and character info for these yet.

* all names are fictional

This is not an immigration advice


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## CollegeGirl (Nov 10, 2012)

Does anyone still have access to this document, or is anyone able to find it again? I used my best Google-fu, and I can't find the application/rejection rates for PMV applicants that were linked to in the now-defunct Google Doc.


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## iduno (Jan 24, 2013)

CollegeGirl said:


> Does anyone still have access to this document, or is anyone able to find it again? I used my best Google-fu, and I can't find the application/rejection rates for PMV applicants that were linked to in the now-defunct Google Doc.


Is this the one you are looking for?
If it is I cant copy the link or attach the file.
Let me know if this is the one and I'll work out how to attach to a reply.

QUESTION TAKEN ON NOTICE
PUBLIC HEARING ON PROSPECTIVE MARRIAGE: 25 MAY 2012
IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP PORTFOLIO


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## CollegeGirl (Nov 10, 2012)

That is exactly it, iduno! You are a genius!  I had to do some finagling in the Google source code to figure out the URL to link, but here it is. Keep in mind, anyone who clicks, that clicking this link will download the PDF document directly from the Senate website.


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## iduno (Jan 24, 2013)

CollegeGirl said:


> That is exactly it, iduno! You are a genius!  I had to do some finagling in the Google source code to figure out the URL to link, but here it is. Keep in mind, anyone who clicks, that clicking this link will download the PDF document directly from the Senate website.


Interesting reading CG, you need an apple computer, I can open the original link that McCamel put on here last year.


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## CollegeGirl (Nov 10, 2012)

I could read it just fine when he originally posted it, and my computer hasn't changed... so I don't think it's that. But my fiance would agree with you... he insists my next computer will be a Mac. lol


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## AngeliquePrince (Dec 10, 2012)

Hi All,

I am about to file my 820 next month. I am happy that most likely it will be approved.

Cheers,

AngeliquePrince


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## MarkNortham (Dec 19, 2012)

Hi Angelique -

Sounds great! Some quick tips, especially as you're from the Philippines and they have some unique requirements:

* Don't forget you need at least 2 Form 888's from Australian citizens or permanent residents, dated no more than 6 weeks before you lodge.
* Philippines has its own special requirements, including that you have the CENOMAR certificate and birth certificate sent directly from the NSO to the DIAC office at the embassy
* As noted in another thread, as of 1 July all onshore partner visa applications must be sent by post or courier, cannot be hand delivered

Hope this helps, and good luck with your application!

Best,

Mark Northam


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## AngeliquePrince (Dec 10, 2012)

Hi Mark,

Sorry it is just now that I replied back to your response. I forgot to tell everyone that I am in Victoria now, onshore application and I got granted with my Bridging Visa A for a day  that was fast but needs to get a Bridging Visa B to visit Manila. 

Mark, how long do you think will it take for me to get my Bridging Visa B granted? Hope it will be sooner that 3 weeks  and sorry I have another question, I intend to renew my passport in Manila, if I got my new passport how can I inform the Immigration that I have a new passport number so that the visa grant will be transferred to the new one. Can this be done via Australian Immigration Manila? Hope so.

Thank you so much for always helping us.

Cheers,

AngeliquePrince


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## MarkNortham (Dec 19, 2012)

Hi Angelique -

BV-B's are granted very quickly - many times people apply directly at DIAC and get the visa on the spot. If not, typically 1-2 weeks max if applying via post, etc. 

Re: change of passport, you can Google DIAC Form 929 and download that form - lodge according to the instructions on the form, and that's the best way to inform DIAC of your new passport so they can link your visa to it.

Hope this helps -

Best,

Mark Northam


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## AngeliquePrince (Dec 10, 2012)

Hi Mark,

Thank you for the quick response to my concerns. I was able to finsh downloading form 929. I will have to coordinate with Australian Immigration for the change in Passport details specifically my passport number.

Thank you so so much. Hope I can be approved soon. 

Cheers,

AngeliquePrince


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## MarkNortham (Dec 19, 2012)

You're welcome - good luck with all!

Best,

Mark Northam


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