sazm2k12 Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Has anybody applied for their citizenship and had to use the administrative error category to ask the minister to exercise discretion? We have been in Oz 4 years yesterday (first 2 years on a working holiday visa, then rest on a bridging and 187 visa) and went to apply for our citizenship but it kept saying we weren't eligible. I called immigration and it turns out we are not technically eligible. This is because when we applied for our 187 visa there was an error with immigration granting our bridging visa (there was a period of about 4 days where everyone who lodged their visa over this period did not get their bridging visas granted due to a system error). This meant that our working holiday visa expired on 3 December but our bridging visa was not approved until 18 December despite us putting in our 187 application in November so we had a period of time that we were not legally in Australia. Does anybody think this will be a problem? The way I see it we did everything we could to remain in Australia legally by applying for our visa on time and we were even calling immigration on a daily basis to find out what we should do etc and if we should leave the country but nobody was giving us an answer and just telling us to wait. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quinkla Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 The more information about the error you are able to provide, the more likely you are to get a favourable outcome. Ideally you would have some paperwork from Immi already acknowledging that the error was theirs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sazm2k12 Posted December 4, 2014 Author Share Posted December 4, 2014 Yea I've got an email from immigration stating that due to system errors they are unable to grant bridging visas for applications lodged between 27 October and 23 November. That's all I have really though proving it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thinker78 Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 Yea I've got an email from immigration stating that due to system errors they are unable to grant bridging visas for applications lodged between 27 October and 23 November. That's all I have really though proving it... That's pretty good evidence. The onus is on you to prove that there was an error and if in doubt, you may ask for all of your information under the FOI Act regarding your application and visa dates etc. If you have some proof, and it sounds like you do, write a thorough stat dec/letter stating the period of time you were unlawful and why (administrative error) and attach the evidence. If in doubt, a registered migration agent may be able to assist your application. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sazm2k12 Posted December 4, 2014 Author Share Posted December 4, 2014 Thanks thinker, I had to attach a letter outlining everything with my citizenship application and I included evidence of the date I applied etc. If they ask for more information I can show them a log of the repeated emails and telephone calls we made to them as well. Its really annoying because we were just unlucky in that we applied for our 187 visa during that timeframe that there was a system error. It already caused us a lot of stress at the time (my partner nearly lost his job because he didn't have a valid work visa, and it was right in the run up to Xmas) and now it is coming back to haunt us! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bongo48 Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 Hey mate, what was the outcome? How long were you waiting for invitation? Did they ask you to provide more documents? We have the same situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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