Hi everyone please read this carefully if anyone wants to leave employer after granted visa or they are exploited by employer
This article is written by experienced migration agent over 20 years experience, who specially deals with 187 visa.
Leaving your visa sponsor | 187 visa
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In the visa application form, as the applicant, you are required to declare that you:
Agree to work in the nominated position for at least two years
Understand that if you as the applicant, or any family members included in the application or third parties acting your behalf, provide (or have provided in a previous application) false or misleading information, or bogus documents either knowingly or otherwise, the visa application will be refused and you may be subject to three year bar in relation to visas to which the fraud criterion applies. Any visa granted may be cancelled.
Effectively, this means that when your visa application is lodged, you must have the intention to work for your sponsoring employer in your nominated role for at least 2 years from the date that the visa is approved.
You need to continue to have this intention until a decision is made on your application. If your intention changes before lodgement, or during processing, and you no longer intend to work for your sponsoring employer for at least 2 years from when the visa is approved, then you should either not lodge the application or inform the Department and withdraw your application (which ever is applicable to your situation).
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Section 137Q – Cancellation of permanent residency
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Section 137Q gives the Department the power to cancel the permanent residency that you obtained through RSMS. The section itself is relatively straight forward and states that permanent residency granted under the RSMS pathway may be cancelled if:
You do not commence employment in your nominated role within 6 months of the date of approval (if you are in Australia at the time of approval) or within 6 months of entering Australia as the holder of a RSMS visa AND you do not satisfy the Department that you have made a genuine effort to commence employment within the 6 month period; or
You commence employment but you terminate your employment within the first 2 years AND you do not satisfy the Department that you have made a genuine effort to remain in your nominated role for the required 2 years.
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How is the Department notified?
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Generally speaking, the most common way for the Department to find out is through the employer notifying the Department that you have either failed to commence employment, or you terminated your employment before you have completed 2 years.
The Department can also find out about the termination of your employment through information that it receives from other government departments, such as the Australian Taxation Office, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Centrelink etc.
As the visa holder, you are not under any specific obligation to notify the Department if your employment is terminated.
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Relevant considerations in assessing ‘genuine effort’
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If the Department does decide to conduct an investigation, under policy, the following must be considered when the Department determines whether you have made a ‘ genuine effort’ (the below is a direct extract from the Department’s policy):
The visa holder’s reasons and/or circumstances leading to the failure to commence work or to complete the two year employment period (family or personal considerations may be a factor under these circumstances)
The possibility that the visa holder, in collusion with the employer, does not commence work within the six month period or resigns shortly after commencing work, as part of an arrangement to help the visa holder enter or remain in Australia
In the case of termination, the period of the visa holder’s employment with the employer prior to termination of the employment (generally, periods of more than 12 months may be considered as a genuine effort) and
Any other matter which is relevant to the commencement or termination of the employment.
The below is a summary of other relevant parts of the Department’s policy in relation to s137Q:
If you are ceasing employment on ‘reasonable grounds’, you are expected to give your employer reasonable notice.
The Department is unlikely to decide that you have not made a genuine effort if your failure to commence or your termination of employment was due to circumstances outside of your control (e.g. your employer’s financial loss, bankruptcy or closure of the business).
The Department may decide that you have not made a genuine effort if you ‘deliberately damaged or sabotaged the employer’s business to cause the dismissal’.
At the end of the day, policy does state that decisions made under s137Q are a matter to be resolved between the Department and the visa holder. The former employer can provide information to the Department but they are not involved in the ultimate decision-making process.
Consequently, if the Department is considering the possibility of cancelling your visa, the Department will need to contact you to give you the opportunity to present your side of the story.
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Before you ask…
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Please do not ask us whether it is ok for you to leave your employer before completing the required 2 years of post visa approval employment. I’m sorry but I’m not going to respond to comment questions asking me to predict whether the Department will take any action against your permanent residency.
One of our clients did contact the Department before he left his employer – he asked the Department whether it was ok for him to leave and whether the Department would take action against his permanent residency visa. The Department expressly advised:
The Department is unable to determine whether or not a visa would be cancelled prior to ceasing employment. The assessment can only be made after the event, that is, after the visa holder ceases employment with the nominated employer.
If the Department cannot even tell you what is going to happen before they complete an assessment, then I certainly cannot predict the Department’s actions.
I would say that if you ceased employment because your employer no longer needs you (irrespective of why this is the case – it can be a change of management, closure of the business, lack of work etc.), then I think that the Department is unlikely to take any action against your permanent residency.
Also, if you have obtained your Australian citizenship, then I do not think that the Department would take any action against your citizenship if you leave your employer
