Yet A Longer Road to Partner Visa

[aggienaut]

   It seemed like the ongoing struggle to get my fiancee a visa couldn't get worse but it seems like it may have.

Background
   But first let me summarize everything up to this point. So Cristina lives in Venezuela, where I, as an American, cannot go, and being from a collapsing country she can't just come to Australia on any easy-to-get visa.

   After we got engaged in September 2019, to get her here we would get married (was advised the Australian government would be unlikely to recognize our relationship as bona fide unless we were officially married already, but also we planned to get married regardless), but as we can't do it in either of our home countries and many countries require at least one of the parties to the marriage to be a resident of that country it took some figuring out but finally we settled on Bahamas in April 2020. Once married, I could list her as my partner on the permanent residency (PR) visa application I then had in the works and voila when that came through she'd have legal residency here as my partner on the visa. We began making solid plans, booking an appointment with the wedding officer and flights and starting to work on hotels ... and then Covid happened.

   My work visa was running out and I couldn't wait any longer to file for the PR, so I had to do so without her listed as the partner. Once my own PR visa was approved in February of this year we immediately turned our attention to the visa situation for Cristina. The immigration lawyer recommended a "prospective marriage visa" and, as Cristina was by now mid-way through her anesthesiology residency, the lawyer advised, which I'll quote because I feel a bit salty about it now: "I think the application can commence at the end of the year as she’s still completing her postgraduate course. The prospective marriage visa will take around 12 months to process and by the time it’s being assessed, she should be ready to come to Australia etc."

   So we cooled our heels and twiddled our figurative fingers, anxiously waiting to see eachother again. Now, the other day, it getting towards a year from Cristina's graduation from this program, we emailed the lawyer again.


The Latest
   So first of all the former lawyer is apparently no longer with the firm. The "director" (as they apparently call all business chief executives here) advised us that it takes "23-30" months for the prospective partner visa to go through. Here we let a year go by and now, after two years have already passed since we became engaged, we are told we probably have to wait two to two-and-a-half MORE years!! (if we get married before then it would make the prospective marriage visa application invalid and we'd have to start over with a partner visa).
   AND THAT'S NOT ALL

   He advises that sometime beween next week and the end of this month they are going to change the partner visa framework TO MAKE IT HARDER -- instead of one partner visa application I will have to apply for eligibility to sponsor a partner and then she applies as my sponsee. Since the lawyer advised me it's not possible to get the application in in a week (I didn't think it would be but had to ask) this situation will probably apply to us. With just our luck it will probably shoot up the costs (did I mention they're currently $13,239.90 Ausdollars (/ $9,757.61 US)) as well as increase the time. ::grinds teeth::


   When I told Cristina these things, via whatsapp (I was at work when the email came in), she expressed various lamentations and "It's too long, I can't take another year" and then didn't respond for most of an hour, which left me doubly freaking out, that perhaps she was despairing of this crazy odyssey and throwing in the towel. But fortunately it turned out that was not the case.


   So that's the current situation. At least soon we'll be able to travel again and we'll at least be able to meet in a third country again so it won't necessarily be another two years before even seeing eachother (though it might be one entire additional year, her boss isn't big on giving them any time off at all from the residency program).

Comments

[wpadmirer.livejournal.com]

I'm really sorry to hear this. DAMN!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Thanks :-/

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

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[iddewes]

I really hope it won't be too much longer till you can see her again, at least. I am sorry it looks like it's still going to be a long time until you can be together. :(

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Indeeeed ):

[(Anonymous)]

I wish you best of luck! Very painful subject for many. It took me years to become a resident in the US. And 11 years to become a citizen through marriage. It is real torture for any relationship. Unnecessary torture.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Certainly puts a relationship through the test! :-/

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

That's AWFUL. It does seem as if in AUS they are hell bent on making any sort of immigration difficult.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

oh they really are

[belleweather.livejournal.com]

We're still processing K-1s in somewhere between 6 and 12 months, as far as I know. I know that you don't want to go back to the US, but it'd be a much cheaper and faster option. I just can't figure out how you'd get both of you back to AUS, unless the aussies would give her access based on her green card without having to wait to naturalize. Or you got a job at USAID or DOD or something where she could qualify for expeditious naturalization... :( Immigration sucks.

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

geez, what a hassle!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeeeah ):

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

ugh

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeeah ):

[yueshi.livejournal.com]

That sounds really complicated.
But I wasn‘t aware that US Americans can‘t travel to Venezuela….. is there actually a ban, or is it out of safety concerns?

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Safety concerns. I could travel there though I'd need to apply for and receive a visa. But American tourists are regularly arrested for being accused of being CIA spies and tortured for months/years until finally traded back in exchange for Venezuelans arrested abroad. The United States no longer has an embassy in Venezuala and along with Iran and North Korea it has the State Departments strongest travel advisory level of "DO NOT TRAVEL"

[yueshi.livejournal.com]

Okay, that makes sense. For a moment I was really wondering if Venezuela just went „nope, no Americans here“
Well, I keep my fingers crossed that you will find some way to get married soon!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[waitingman.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I'm so embarrassed by our country's visa laws & how hard it makes things for people to come here. The way we carry on, you'd think we were packed into the place cheek-by-jowl, instead of having one of the lowest population densities this side of Antarctica...

Your wonderful relationship needs no further documentation — it's clearly the real macaw...

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Lol!

And yeah, I've definitely remarked before about how they act like the country is "all full up" where even if you don't account for the vast deserts in the middle it STILL has an unusually low population density. They definitely make it deeply unreasonably difficult to immigrate here. I'm also often thinking about how I think it was still within the lifetime of people living today that they would literally pay (white folks) to move here. And Australia is even more of an "immigrant country" than the US. Nearly everyone I know if not an immigrant themselves has parents born abroad, but they got here and want to slam the door behind them

[waitingman.livejournal.com]

That's exactly the problem — there are too many people still alive from the 'White Australia' policy days & the Ten Pound Poms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Pound_Poms) who were paid to come here, post WWII — I just read that scheme was in place until 1982!!

The issue is that back when those immigration policies were in place, it was primarily to get skilled workers out here for our burgeoning industrial, manufacturing & engineering projects. In these modern days when all that industry has been moved off-shore & most jobs are now in hospitality, retail, law, finance & real estate, it's the old factory workers & their indoctrinated offspring who grumble about the bloody foreigners coming over here taking our jobs & stealing our Welfare (Surely they can't do BOTH??!!), mostly because the bloody foreigners are arriving well-educated & willing to work, like the old days, but now they're not white people!!!!!

Ironically, a lot of Australian doctors, lawyers & scientists have to leave & go overseas to find work in their fields... as successive federal governments have reduced funding to research organisations, teaching hospitals & community law programs...

Full up you say?? Then why are we still building so many blocks of apartments anywhere an old building is suspiciously demolished 'falls down'??? There are hundreds & hundreds of homeless & at-risk people who could benefit from those, but they're usually snapped up as investment properties that spend more time empty than being used... probably because the necessary supporting infrastructure like schools, transport, shops & parks are a long way off being built... probably because there's not as much profit in it...

End of rant!!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Another funny thing is how they desperately want rural doctors, but apparently doctors in order to get their credentials recognized in Australia need to spend a year or so at one of a small number of approved hospitals, like doing a residency all over again, and these are all ni the major cities, and I'd imagine being forced to spend at least a year in a place increases the odds the person will decide they want to stay there versus going off into a rural area.

[adafrog.livejournal.com]

Damn. {{{hugs}}}

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Thanks!