Validation of 190 visas

[LettCat]

On 13/10/2023 at 02:14, InnerVoice said:

A UK law degree won't let you practice law in the UK either, without additional study. You need to complete the Legal Practice Course (solicitor) or Bar Training Course (barrister), followed by a training contract / pupillage, and also pass all the professional exams. Many non-law graduates go into law without doing a law degree, as they complete a one-year graduate diploma in law. Doing a law degree from the outset only saves you one year on the whole process of becoming a solicitor or barrister compared with graduates in other fields. 

I understand that even all these efforts do not guarantee permission to practice law in the UK.

[InnerVoice]

37 minutes ago, LettCat said:

As far as I understand from this article, visa cancellation can happen at any time. And this is done at the discretion of the authorities. Only Australian citizenship guarantees a future in Australia.

That's not exactly true. Many people stay permanent residents for decades without becoming citizens. In some cases it's because they come from a country where they can't hold dual citizenship, but in other cases they just never get around to it. Immigration would only cancel your permanent resident's visa in exceptional circumstances, so as long as you're living in Australia and you have an RRV if you intend to travel overseas, you have little to worry about. Having said that, I applied for citizenship as soon as I became eligible because it makes life a lot easier if you wish to reside overseas for a period of time. Also, you no longer need to worry about obtaining an RRV which are now quite expensive.

30 minutes ago, LettCat said:

I understand that even all these efforts do not guarantee permission to practice law in the UK.

I've heard that too. It's very competitive by all accounts.

[paulhand]

6 hours ago, InnerVoice said:

That's not exactly true. Many people stay permanent residents for decades without becoming citizens. In some cases it's because they come from a country where they can't hold dual citizenship, but in other cases they just never get around to it. Immigration would only cancel your permanent resident's visa in exceptional circumstances, so as long as you're living in Australia and you have an RRV if you intend to travel overseas, you have little to worry about.

I tend to disagree with this. Get into any sort of trouble with the law and you run a genuine risk of cancellation, even if you have been in Australia for decades. Clearly for the average, law abiding PR then this is a remote possibility, but why run the risk.

[Nemesis]

7 hours ago, LettCat said:

As far as I understand from this article, visa cancellation can happen at any time. And this is done at the discretion of the authorities. Only Australian citizenship guarantees a future in Australia.

As Inner Voice has said, people often live in Oz on PR visas for many years, never bothering with citizenship - my former sister-in-law arrived as a baby and never bothered with citizenship until the family started going to Bali on holiday and she though maybe the whole family should have the same citizenship. She was in her 40s by then. 

However my point now is that actually, even being a citizen doesn't guarantee your future, as if you commit certain crimes, or are considered a risk to society, as long as you have another citizenship, you can be stripped of your Australian one 

[paulhand]

4 minutes ago, Nemesis said:

As Inner Voice has said, people often live in Oz on PR visas for many years, never bothering with citizenship - my former sister-in-law arrived as a baby and never bothered with citizenship until the family started going to Bali on holiday and she though maybe the whole family should have the same citizenship. She was in her 40s by then. 

However my point now is that actually, even being a citizen doesn't guarantee your future, as if you commit certain crimes, or are considered a risk to society, as long as you have another citizenship, you can be stripped of your Australian one 

The bar is distinctly higher as a citizen. Unless the issue was a result of migration fraud (or behaviour before citizenship was granted) then it generally has to be terrorism/national security related. 

[Nemesis]

10 minutes ago, paulhand said:

The bar is distinctly higher as a citizen. Unless the issue was a result of migration fraud (or behaviour before citizenship was granted) then it generally has to be terrorism/national security related. 

Thanks, yes I appreciate it would be very unusual, but it can happen in extreme circumstances, can't it!

[InnerVoice]

7 hours ago, paulhand said:

I tend to disagree with this. Get into any sort of trouble with the law and you run a genuine risk of cancellation, even if you have been in Australia for decades. Clearly for the average, law abiding PR then this is a remote possibility, but why run the risk.

When I mentioned exceptional circumstances that's what I was implying, but I appreciate that getting into trouble with the law probably isn't so uncommon these days.

I agree that it seems unwise not to become a citizen when you have the opportunity given the privileges and benefits of being one. However, there are quite a few countries that do not allow dual citizenship. By renouncing citizenship in one's birth country, I assume you would lose any entitlement to those benefits in future like their state pension.

[Nemesis]

15 minutes ago, InnerVoice said:

When I mentioned exceptional circumstances that's what I was implying, but I appreciate that getting into trouble with the law probably isn't so uncommon these days.

I agree that it seems unwise not to become a citizen when you have the opportunity given the privileges and benefits of being one. However, there are quite a few countries that do not allow dual citizenship. By renouncing citizenship in one's birth country, I assume you would lose any entitlement to those benefits in future like their state pension.

Probably varies from country to country, but in both the UK and Australia, one can get (for example) the state pension without being a citizen, 

[Marisawright]

53 minutes ago, InnerVoice said:

I agree that it seems unwise not to become a citizen when you have the opportunity given the privileges and benefits of being one. However, there are quite a few countries that do not allow dual citizenship. By renouncing citizenship in one's birth country, I assume you would lose any entitlement to those benefits in future like their state pension.

One risk of not getting citizenship, that you haven't mentioned, is the risk of getting stuck overseas unexpectedly.  That's why I got citizenship as soon as I could.  I always worried that I'd get called back to the UK one day to care for a sick parent, and end up having to stay for several years.  Quoll's experience is a good example of exactly that happening.  At the time, I was renting, so I'd have given up my Aussie home, so would've ended up with no 'strong ties' to justify getting a RRV.  

As for pensions, I don't think citizenship confers a right to pensions in many countries these days.  In Australia, for instance, it's residency that determines whether you get a pension, not citizenship.  In the UK, it's NI contributions not citizenship.  

[InnerVoice]

8 hours ago, Nemesis said:

As Inner Voice has said, people often live in Oz on PR visas for many years, never bothering with citizenship - my former sister-in-law arrived as a baby and never bothered with citizenship until the family started going to Bali on holiday and she though maybe the whole family should have the same citizenship. She was in her 40s by then. 

However my point now is that actually, even being a citizen doesn't guarantee your future, as if you commit certain crimes, or are considered a risk to society, as long as you have another citizenship, you can be stripped of your Australian one 

You don't even need to have another citizenship. According to the following press release from 2018 there had been 9 people stripped off their Australian citizenship at the time for their involvement with terrorist organisations, and 6 of those were currently overseas. It's a contravention of human rights for a government to make you stateless, but if you're eligible to apply for citizenship of another country then it seems a government can still deprive you of your citizenship. The case of British-born Shamima Begum springs to mind. The UK stripped her of her British citizenship because they said she was eligible to apply for Bangladeshi citizenship, so technically they weren't making her stateless. The government's decision was legally-challenged on a number of occasions but was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court. Legally it seems to be something of a grey area, but public support is so overwhelmingly in favour of keeping these people out it will no doubt continue.

https://minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/peterdutton/Pages/Combatting-Australian-terrorists.aspx

[InnerVoice]

12 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

One risk of not getting citizenship, that you haven't mentioned, is the risk of getting stuck overseas unexpectedly.  That's why I got citizenship as soon as I could.  I always worried that I'd get called back to the UK one day to care for a sick parent, and end up having to stay for several years.  Quoll's experience is a good example of exactly that happening.  At the time, I was renting, so I'd have given up my Aussie home, so would've ended up with no 'strong ties' to justify getting a RRV.

I was in the same boat. I wanted to return to the UK but hadn't got around to applying for citizenship, even though I'd been here almost a decade by then. I remember thinking it was a bit of a faff at the time, but I'm so glad I did it as I always had that piece of mind when I was back in the UK and it made returning here a doddle.

[Marisawright]

16 minutes ago, InnerVoice said:

I was in the same boat. I wanted to return to the UK but hadn't got around to applying for citizenship, even though I'd been here almost a decade by then. I remember thinking it was a bit of a faff at the time, but I'm so glad I did it as I always had that piece of mind when I was back in the UK and it made returning here a doddle.

I think some people think they can just keep renewing their RRV but it doesn't work like that.   Holding a RRV doesn't mean you automatically get another one when it expires. You need to meet the eligibility requirements every single time.