Immi Account or Registered Migration Agent?
The DIBP (Department of Immigration and Border Protection) has a website where anyone can
lodge their own visa application online.
You can make your own "Immi Account", click the buttons and away
you go.
Is that all you need?
Or is a successful visa application from Philippines to Australia a bit more
complicated than that?
Many will assume that an easy online application system will make the process also easy.
Well, guess what?
The statistics don't back that up at all!
Immi Account online applications get refused every day,
just like the paper ones always have!
Australian visitor visas - more than just forms
The biggest mistake anyone can make with an Australian visitor visa application from Philippines
(aka "tourist visa" application) is to think it's
just a form.
You still have around a 1:4 chance of a refusal or
having to withdraw your application because of errors.
Filling out the form is about 10% of the work in a successful visa application.
You may even fill out the form correctly, and still face a refusal.
This isn't like renewing your drivers license.
This is an application for a grant, and there remains a real possibility that you won't
earn that grant because it's about fulfilling criteria
set into Australian law in the Migration Regulations (Cth) 1994.
And that takes more than ticking the right boxes.
What makes a successful tourist visa application?
Meet the criteria, and you will get a visa.
Don't meet the criteria, and you won't.
You need to prove to the Case Officers at the Australian Embassy
that you meet the criteria before they will grant the visa.
If you don't, they literally have no choice.
And they do this because they have so many who try to do the
wrong thing.
It's the nature of things when you have a rich country and a poor country.
Many in the Philippines see wealthier countries as lands
of opportunity and would love to be there to share in the
wealth.
And tourist visas seem like the easy way in.
So many will have wrong intentions in their attempts
to get into Australia.
What are the visa criteria?
I won't list them all, but I will tell you that the main issue is around the word
"genuine".
Tourist visas are for visiting family and friends and for doing tourist-things.
They are not for working, or for seeking work, or for staying
for a long time and avoiding a more expensive partner visa
application.
They want to believe absolutely that the visa applicant has a good reason to visit that
matches what tourist visas are for, and will be on the plane home before the visa stay
period runs out.
Sound simple?
I suppose on the surface it does, but the weakness in doing your own application is
that you see it through your own eyes and naturally
will assume that what you're submitting is good enough
and is exactly what they want to see.
I know this, because every client who comes to us for help after
their application was refused is shocked and dismayed.
Many are angry and indignant, feeling that they
were singled out and given unfair treatment.
When we look at what their application consisted of, we
normally disagree.
Bottom line is that the Australian Embassy staff in Manila don't know you or anything
about you.
They have your application form, be it a paper
Form 1419 or an online immi account application form, and
they have whatever else you submitted with it.
And if what they have doesn't paint a very clear picture
of a genuine applicant, then yes they will refuse it instantly.
That's their job.
I asked before "What makes a successful tourist visa application?"
A well-prepared and well-presented collection of information and evidence that the visa
applicant meets the visa criteria beyond reasonable doubt.
This is what an experienced Registered Migration Agent does
for you.
And what makes that happen consistently?
Ticking the boxes correctly on an online form and clicking SUBMIT?
No!
What it takes is knowledge, skills and experience in managing these applications
hundreds of times per year for Australian Filipina
couples, and to keep doing it again and again.
Sounds to me like a Registered Migration Agent once
again.