Didn’t apply for bridging visa B before travelling. Now stuck

[drewbty]

I’ve been living in Australia for 10 years and travelled out of the country about twice a year for holidays whilst on various work sponsor visas. Last October I was finally able to apply for a 186 ENS which I did, and was granted a BVA in the meantime. 

A couple of weeks ago the wife and I travelled to Bali for our 1 year wedding anniversary without realising you have to ask for ‘permission’ now to leave the country, in the form of a BVB. 
 

Long story short we weren’t able to board the plane as the BVA is auto cancelled once we left, and we’re now stuck in Bali…

 

I believe the plan of attack for us is apply for tourist visas to get back into the country and then from there, apply to have our BVA’s reinstated. This seems strange to me as you should really be a GTE to apply for a tourist visa, but I’ve been assured it’s the best path open to us. 
 

I’ve applied for a evisitor subclass 651 for me which should hopefully be granted on Monday. The issue is my wife is Brazilian so we could only apply for a long form 600 tourist visa. This could take up to 5 weeks to be looked at by immi, from the current guidelines on timeframe on the website. 
 

I’ve emailed the Jakarta embassy asking for special circumstance to look at my wife’s application and get it expedited. My wife is due back in work on Monday and is a social worker by trade who works in a disability support centre, who are short staffed as it is. I’ve argued that each day she is waiting on processing is harming Australian citizens with disability. 
 

From the auto generated response I’m not sure if they will even consider looking at the application though. They spoke about only helping act on cases that have gone directly through them by appointment. 
 

I’m not sure if there’s anything else I can do besides also calling them on Monday and see if I can talk to someone at the embassy. Again I don’t know if they’ll help her with consulate services as she’s not Australian. 
 

Any other advise for things I can try to get a decision on her tourist visa fast tracked?

TIA

[Nemesis]

On 12/03/2023 at 06:06, drewbty said:

I’ve been living in Australia for 10 years and travelled out of the country about twice a year for holidays whilst on various work sponsor visas. Last October I was finally able to apply for a 186 ENS which I did, and was granted a BVA in the meantime. 

A couple of weeks ago the wife and I travelled to Bali for our 1 year wedding anniversary without realising you have to ask for ‘permission’ now to leave the country, in the form of a BVB. 
 

Long story short we weren’t able to board the plane as the BVA is auto cancelled once we left, and we’re now stuck in Bali…

 

I believe the plan of attack for us is apply for tourist visas to get back into the country and then from there, apply to have our BVA’s reinstated. This seems strange to me as you should really be a GTE to apply for a tourist visa, but I’ve been assured it’s the best path open to us. 
 

I’ve applied for a evisitor subclass 651 for me which should hopefully be granted on Monday. The issue is my wife is Brazilian so we could only apply for a long form 600 tourist visa. This could take up to 5 weeks to be looked at by immi, from the current guidelines on timeframe on the website. 
 

I’ve emailed the Jakarta embassy asking for special circumstance to look at my wife’s application and get it expedited. My wife is due back in work on Monday and is a social worker by trade who works in a disability support centre, who are short staffed as it is. I’ve argued that each day she is waiting on processing is harming Australian citizens with disability. 
 

From the auto generated response I’m not sure if they will even consider looking at the application though. They spoke about only helping act on cases that have gone directly through them by appointment. 
 

I’m not sure if there’s anything else I can do besides also calling them on Monday and see if I can talk to someone at the embassy. Again I don’t know if they’ll help her with consulate services as she’s not Australian. 
 

Any other advise for things I can try to get a decision on her tourist visa fast tracked?

TIA

Have you spoken to a registered agent at all?

[Tulip1]

Agree with post above.  The most important thing you should be doing is speaking to a migrant agent.  Perhaps you’ve already done that, not sure who you spoke to that assured you of the best path (hopefully someone qualified)

[drewbty]

Yes I have. The post was really just to ask if there’s anything anyone knows of to get things fast tracked given the situation of her being needed back to work. 

As it turns out, immi or Jakarta won’t help. They will only fast track in cases that involve critical industry and that doesn’t include disability support (the covid list of critical industries aren’t used anymore)

Amazingly the wife got approved for her 600 visitor visa after just over 1 business day. The mid mark estimation (50% of applications) was 12 business days so I’m quite shocked at that. 
 

My 651 eVisitor visa took an extra day even though 90% of applications are <24 hours (they must have flagged for manual review) 

For anyone in this situation in the future, the wife got granted a 14 day stay 600 visa, with instruction in the accompanying letter to apply for a bridging visa straight away after landing in Australia. You can’t legally work on a visitor visa, so you shouldn’t really be back at work until you get granted your new bridging visa. 

After getting spooked by the unusual wait time for my 651, I applied for an ETA 601 through the app as I hear these are generally auto granted, which it was for me too. So I now have 2 visas to come back and we have booked our flights for tomorrow. If you’re from an eligible country, I would encourage you to apply for an ETA over a 651 for this reason. There is a $20 fee for the ETA but def worth it if time is of the essence. 

When you return to Aus, it’s a bridging visa A you need to apply for. They tell you to apply for a bridging visa (don’t tell you which one which could trip people up) through your immi account but bridging visa A is not there as an option (only a bridging visa E is available which is a special class of visa for people who are unlawful). So you need to apply and attach a document through the online web form here - https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/help-support/departmental-forms/online-forms/bridging-a-b-c-visa-application-online

Another heads up I would warn you about is to go to the airport during the day early and go to information desk for your airline. I did this today just so they scan our passports and make sure everything is ok. Mine scanned fine to board but the wife’s got a ‘contact immi for approval’ message because she had 2 visas, a valid 600 visitor as well as a ‘do not board’ tag on the old BVA. This was with Jetstar and amazingly they get on WhatsApp right then and there and have a realtime convo with some official in Denpasar to authorise the travel. The consulate closes at 4pm so if you have a later flight you’re probably not travelling if you don’t do this prior. 

Edited March 14, 2023 by drewbty

[paulhand]

4 hours ago, drewbty said:

You can’t legally work on a visitor visa, so you shouldn’t really be back at work until you get granted your new bridging visa. 

... until your visitor visa expires and the BVA comes into effect  ... so 14 days for the 600 and three months for the 651.

4 hours ago, drewbty said:

The consulate closes at 4pm

There is a 24 hour operations centre in Canberra that the airline can call.

4 hours ago, drewbty said:

So I now have 2 visas to come back and we have booked our flights for tomorrow. If you’re from an eligible country, I would encourage you to apply for an ETA over a 651 for this reason. There is a $20 fee for the ETA but def worth it if time is of the essence. 

If you have a 651, the ETA won't be in effect. You can't hold two in effect visas at once.

[drewbty]

18 hours ago, paulhand said:

... until your visitor visa expires and the BVA comes into effect  ... so 14 days for the 600 and three months for the 651.

There is a 24 hour operations centre in Canberra that the airline can call.

If you have a 651, the ETA won't be in effect. You can't hold two in effect visas at once.

Yes thanks, comes into effect it should say! I would like to edit this with the correct language but it doesn’t let me unfortunately. 
 

Re: point 3. The ETA got approved first, which has a visa grant number. A few hours later the 651 got approved with a separate visa grant number, which am aware then outplays the 601 ETA. Didn’t mean holding 2 ‘active’ visas simultaneously which is impossible.
What was interesting in this part of the process was that I wasn’t able to cancel the 651 application from my immi account once the ETA was granted, there’s no facility to cancel a 651 it seems.  
 

I will also add some potentially critical info for any future readers that given the ETA/eVisitor just gets granted for 3 months you won’t legally be able to work for 3 months until this visa expires, which is obviously a load of nonsense (the whole process is obviously broken, which starts with needing to ask for permission/pay for a BVB to go on holiday). For this reason, and especially if you work for a bigger company who are aware of your situation and have HR procedures in place, I would highly recommend you just swallow the bullet and pay the $150 offshore lodging fee well as accepting the longer processing time for the 600 long form visitor visa, even if you come from a country that’s eligible for ETA/651. On the 600 application you can give custom information about your case in the online lodgement form and all being well you should get a 14 days visitor grant at the end of it. 

Edited March 15, 2023 by drewbty

[drewbty]

Also would add that as well as filling in and manually attaching a bridging visa A application through the online web form, you can additionally apply to get it reinstated directly from your pending substantive visa application in the immi account, which I didn’t lodge myself so I couldn’t see! It won’t be available to apply for in the options under ‘new application’ (more bad comms from immi). It’s quick and easy from there and both the wife and I’s were approved 2 hours after lodgement.