An international student says he is extremely disappointed that his father’s visitor visa application hasn’t been decided in over eight months, causing him to miss the university convocation that the student’s parents wanted to attend together last year.
Sameer Patel who completed a master’s degree in computer science at the Edith Cowan University in Perth last year, says his parents wanted to visit Australia to attend his convocation.
“Both of them applied for their visas in April last year. My mother received hers in less than three weeks, but we have been waiting for my father’s visa ever since and he couldn’t come for the convocation,” Mr Patel said.
According to the Department of Home Affairs, processing times for most visitor visas are between 16 and 20 days, but despite numerous correspondences with VFS Global an and the Department of Home Affairs, Mr Patel has had no definitive answer.
“Every time I contact the VFS, they would just have a standard reply. Then I contacted Home Affairs and they said in June that the application was under ‘active consideration’,” Mr Patel told SBS Punjabi.
He was told in July last year that the department would contact him “soon” regarding the outcome of the visa application.
It said some applications are more complex and require additional checks which cause them to take longer than the average time for a final decision.
Four and a half months later, Mr Patel was once again told the same thing. The Department of Home Affairs said his father’s application is awaiting the outcome of additional checks and that the Department had no control over the time taken to complete these checks.
“It’s so frustrating not to know how long one has to wait. If there’s some document missing, they should ask for it and I’ll provide that. If not, they just refuse the application and we’ll deal with it, but at least make a decision, don’t hold on to it forever,” Mr Patel says.
The Department also told Mr Patel that it won’t respond to any further queries in this regard.
The Department of Home Affairs told SBS Punjabi that it doesn’t comment on individual cases.
“All non-citizens applying for visas to enter, or remain in, Australia are considered on a case by case basis,” a department spokesperson said.
“Visa processing times are driven by a range of factors including the volume of applications received, completeness of the application, how promptly applicants respond to any requests from the Department and the complexity of assessments in relation to health, character and national security requirements,” the spokesperson added.
However, migration agent Ranbir Singh from Lakshay Migration says it’s extremely unusual for visitor visa applications to take this long for processing.
“It’s quite abnormal for the department to say it won’t respond to the queries about a visitor visa application which has already taken a ridiculously long time,” Mr Singh says.
Mr Patel says he was looking forward to spending some time with his parents in Australia even though his father couldn’t attend his convocation.
“But not knowing when the wait is going to be over and not knowing the reason for the delay make it that much more difficult,” he says.
