Immigration Turmoils

Every student worst nightmare in Australia will always be the letter from the DIMIA (Immigration Dept) informing him / her about the cancellation of the visa and the fact that him / her have to leave the country by next daylight, so to say. In fact, the organization where I worked part time during my student days was raided three times by DIMIA for students who were working more than the stipulated 20 hrs per week. To tell the truth, some of them did, but most of us, were aware of the legal hassles and almost imminent deportation that came along with it. But, doesn't Fortune favour the brave ?

But my ex roomie had a taste of the same thing albeit the reason being different. Every student who arrives in Australia has to get the work visa in 4-6 weeks after landing, so that he / she can work part time. It would take sometime as the DIMIA would ask for confirmation from the university reg the length of study, and the enrollment date etc. That was the reason why it took 4-6 weeks and the visa can be obtained by logging online. Coming to my story, I and my ex roomie went to the DIMIA office at La Trobe street in Melbourne for the stamping of the visa in the passport.

Everything was fine at this stage (April 2003), we were happy, having got the visa with the minimum possible effort and using my mother's credit card to do it, what else do I want ? This poor guy (as it turned out) tried to go back to India in July 2003 for a short trip and the customs officials at Tullamarine airport pointed out that he has overstayed his visa by nearly 3.5 months. The normal expiry date of his visa was March 2004. The problem was the official who printed out the new work permit stamp had put in the expiry date as April 2003. He was not allowed to go out of the airport to get it rectified as it would lead to deportation or detainment in an detention centre. He was eventually allowed to board the aircraft, but was advised that he cannot come back to Australia for the foreseeable future, and then he has to apply again in three years. This is even after pointing out that it was the mistake of their department that lead to this confusion. Then, the Computer Science dept of University of Melbourne was involved in this issue and it took another 2 tension filled hours to solve the issue and the officials provided another visa.

Moral of the story: Always check the expiry date of anything you get from the government and also Arasan Shop at Carnegie, but that is a different story.