Guest Abelardo Posted October 25, 2010 Share Posted October 25, 2010 Hi everybody, First of all, I hope you guys don't mind that I am posting in this forum despite not being a pom. After all, I am a fellow European :-) I lodged an on-shore 820/801 application in September 2009. I am an EU (non UK) citizen and my partner is Australian. We are engaged and have been living together since 2005 (Partly in Europe, partly in Australia). I believe we provided DIAC with extensive evidence to back up our claim. I have been living in Australia for more than 3 years - initially on a 457 visa as part of an intercompany transfer and since then in a bridging visa. My issue: I have a feeling that my ASIO assessment has already been finalised and that the bottleneck lies with my case officer. Since the submission of my application I have already received two invitations to provide further information - in the first invitation (8 months after submission) a newly assigned CO sent back all most of submitted files and pictures (in an unsealed envelope) and provided me with a list of items I needed to provide - to my surprise, this simply a copy of all documentation required for the initial process less the forms. I should add that when I submitted the files, a DIAC employee, which I believed was to be case officer at that time, went through my files and said that this was sufficient, but that he would need to refer me to an external agency for further security checking. I was born in a country (non Arabic) that would justify referral of my application to ASIO for a security assessment. I was not surprised when my case was referred, since my 457 in 2007 visa application was referred too. Back then, the ASIO assessment was fianlised within 6 weeks (that was shortly after the Haneef case and the associated scrutiny on the whole 457 process). I have asked my immigration agent, a well known lawyer on immigration matters, whether i would be possible to follow up with DIAC in order to check what the current hold-up is. He reacted quite frustrated and said that I had to wait for a decision. I don't follow up with my lawyer more than once a month. Whilst I fully agree that this is a waiting game, I was wondering whether my request was that unreasonable and whether there is nothing I could do about the process (assuming that ASIO checks have been finalised). After all, 14 months for an on-shore application for somebody that has been living here for 3 years seem quite long. At the time of my application the average processing time was 6 months. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peach Posted October 27, 2010 Share Posted October 27, 2010 I'd suggest asking for the name of your case officer, from your migration lawyer and contact your case officer directly. It may not move things along any quicker, but you would at least have the most up to date status. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Abelardo Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 I'd suggest asking for the name of your case officer, from your migration lawyer and contact your case officer directly. It may not move things along any quicker, but you would at least have the most up to date status. Hi there, Thanks for your mail That's what I did today before reading your post. I called the general immigration line because I did not want to talk to my CO. I was told that the processing is in its final stages. And when I asked, how she knew, I was told that she could see activity in my file in the past days. I was then told to call back in two weeks, if I had not heard by then. Does anybody know what that means and what sort of "activity" is tracked by the system? Would appreciate any info from people familiar with the procedure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peach Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 Why wouldn't want to speak to you CO? They're generally nice people! ) Have you been asked to do a medical yet? I think that is a sign that you're close to the finish line - as they don't expect you to go to the expense and then not offer you a visa for some other reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Abelardo Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 Why wouldn't want to speak to you CO? They're generally nice people! ) Have you been asked to do a medical yet? I think that is a sign that you're close to the finish line - as they don't expect you to go to the expense and then not offer you a visa for some other reason. The last call I had with my CO was in May. Did not find her that nice and she left me with a feeling of helplessness. So I hired the lawyer. Except for her, I have only had good experiences with DIAC. I front-loaded my Medicals in Sep 09, since I had no idea that I would go through such a long process. I have not been asked for them since. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wrussell Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 If you had 137 active clients expecting you to follow up with the DIAC once a month, you would do little else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Abelardo Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 If you had 137 active clients expecting you to follow up with the DIAC once a month, you would do little else. If a migration agent takes on 137 clients and is therefore not able to maintain a reasonable service standard (which I consider a monthly follow up after a reasonalable wait to be), it can be probably classified as "unethical" behaviour. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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