Bureaucracy...

Case 1 - Aussie guy living in Australia with a French wife, and their two children. Going through the procedures, hoops, hurdles, of getting residency for her... Medicals, chest x-rays, blood tests, etc etc... finally gets the call up that it's ready for processing... so she has to fly out of Australia just so they can do the document processing... whilst this is 'normal procedure'... what's the point of flying out, and flying back in... BUT... it turns out she has theoretically over stayed a tourist visa, and is potentially facing a "lock out" from Aus for 3 years !! What's with that!

Case 2 - Aussie friend has been living in the USA for several years, in New York. Every year or so she has to renew her Visa etc, and goes across the border to Canada to have it all renewed... The last time she had to do it, she had her usual set of documents... "Certified Copies" of several original documents, including copies of University Qualifications, etc etc... At immigration processing, the "officer" asked to see the originals... Turns out they are entitled to ask for originals... She was obviously quite exasperated, and agreed that she would come back another day with "the originals", which were back at her apartment in New York.... So she jumped over to a different queue to "re-enter" the USA on her CURRENT working Visa. Get this... They Arrested her for suspicion of trying to enter the USA and work in the USA without the correct VISA's etc... ever though she still had a 1-2 weeks left on her current Visa. They were deadly serious... took her 12 months to fight the charges, and cost her $10,000 and had to come back to Australia, and fight her case from over here !! Plus countless wasted hours of time from a heap of different people on both sides of the Pacific...

Lived here on a business visa for 6 years.
Moved away for a few years, came back on a tourist visa and applied for Perm Residency based on a defacto relationship.
After submitting my application, it took 2 weeks to be approved.

Sorry, not all applicants have a bad time (but I've also heard of some nightmare applications)

knigit said...

.....

Pretty sure it is designed to be the most clumsy process they could contrive so that only serious applicants make it through the pantomime.

Sounds like you have it sussed. Not limited to imigration, the process seems to have been rolled out to many a government department

knigit said...

Pretty sure it is designed to be the most clumsy process they could contrive so that only serious applicants make it through the pantomime.

Is this the reason so many come by boat? At least they're getting 3 squares a day while waiting...



Getting my UK citizenship from scratch was easy enough... nothing majorly stupid (other than having to pass an english language test) Had to have an hour long unscripted 'chat' with a lawyer - the bas*ard just teased us for an hour about losing the ashes and the rugby

Case 1: Yep, been through all that. It's a painful experience, and they seem to love asking for the same information again and again in as many combinations as possible. Then while you wait your medicals expire, resubmit the forms, etc. etc.

I don't understand how you theoretically overstay a visa though, that won't look good. Do you mean "accidentally"? Sucks.

Case 3: Aussie guy goes from US to Mexico for a day trip. Fun ensues. On returning the customs officer says:

"Oooh, wait a second. This Visa doesn't allow entry from Mexico."

"..."

"You're going to have to go to the Australian consulate in Mexico City to get another one."

"...you're ...oh ****!"

"..."

"..."

"Ha ha! Just kidding man!"