Jeff Harvie’s Thought Of The Day

Protection Visas! aka Refugee Visas! Are these an option for applicants from the Philippines? Or from Thailand, Vietnam or Cambodia?

People get desperate! They want better lives, and they look at their immediate surroundings and situation and can’t think of a simple solution….so they try to be clever. They hear that Australia accepts refugees! They hear the stories about how you arrive on Australia’s shores and they put you up in a flash hotel and throw money at you! Not true, but the rumors sound good! So they think that if they can get into Australia on a tourist visa they just need to go and claim asylum like they do in the movies!

Protection Visas are for those who face real persecution in their homeland and fear for their lives and liberty! Stay, and some crazies are going to try to kill you! If you’re:

• Gay in a fundamentalist country where they will throw you off a roof
• Christian in a country that doesn’t allow you to practice your faith and will kill you or imprison you over it
• Part of an ethnic group in a country where you are at risk of genocide

Scenarios like these, and you can probably apply!

How about where the following apply?

• Scenarios where you can move to another town and your problems will disappear, eg where your ex-husband is threatening you
• Being gay, following an unpopular religion or being part of an ethnic group where a handful of people don’t like you

Don’t waste your time! 

If it’s not an extremist country where life and liberty are in real danger, and where moving a few hundred kilometers away would solve the problem? They will NOT grant a protection visa! 

 

Jeff Harvie is a Registered Migration Agent from Australia, but resident in Philippines since 2010 with his Filipina wife Mila and large extended family. Experienced with the Philippines culture, cross-cultural relationships and bureaucracy as well as Australian visas and Australian Migration Law, he writes with authority and fortunately with enough informality and humour that the average Aussie gets it!