Offshore Visa Grant Outlook & Finding Refuge

Today students and visa holders are celebrating the opening of the Australian borders. I am one of them, despite it not being my time to go yet. This may read calm but I can assure I'm FREAKIN' OUT over the wait so far. Regardless, it's important that we all cheer for each other. We're all going to get there and some have even waited a year longer than me. It’s easy to become bitter after waiting so long without movement to our applications. I’m still very guilty of being envious of others. If you were to browse online immigration forums, you’ll find those who have waited three years with no contact from a case officer. Every so often, you’ll find an “us vs. them” argument between offshore and onshore applicants, bickering over who should be prioritised by the government. For some context, onshore applicants have been getting granted within as little as three months compared to two plus years for offshores. In some cases though, even some onshore applicants have waited just as long. When you consider onshores have been spending money in the economy, paying taxes and school tuition, they've got plenty of right to complain if they've been waiting longer than initially told.

To pass time, I try to get out of the house as much as possible, despite seeing every square inch of my hometown of Austin more than twice. When I'm out, I feel a tense atmosphere. This is especially true taking a grouchy bus into downtown, but I think this has always been the case on public transport. Perhaps if society had not already been dystopian, this pandemic would not have been as bothersome. In saner times, I think many of us could have stomached life being put on hold. Since we are all in a heightened state of anxiety, we all want to “escape” from where we are, as if the place we are going to will solve all our problems... Second thought, I’ll take an Australia beach over any problem. Staring at the same street corners I've known all my life, I wonder who has handled pandemics better; those who lived through the Spanish flu with limited resources or us with modern technology, yet an apparent lack of solidarity. Were people as difficult back then? Then I arrive to my refuge...

The downtown Austin library has been my escape throughout the pandemic. It's quiet, free, and I get my exercise climbing a massive six story stairway spanning over the floors below. Here I’ve learned new skills during my lay off and grown accustomed to familiar strangers. For over a year, I've gone from recognising them though my peripherals to making brief eye contact as if I were stealing a glance at the sun. I still forget the library opens at 10 am so I sit by the entrance for thirty minutes and people watch. I see a homeless man with a fluffy Pyrenees dog. I like it when someone who is homeless has an animal companion. In this case, the man is yelling at passer-byers as the dog stands confused, yet probably used to it. I wonder if he is thinking “of all the warm families I could have ended up with, I get this guy.”

John Henry Faulk Downtown Central Library, Austin Texas

With every successful distraction from limbo, my mind inevitably wanders to Australia about a dozen or more times a day. With so much time to think, I’ve come up with every backup plan to enact if my visa is further delayed. I'm moving to Oregon sometime next month to break up the monotony. It's a state I would have tried living in had Australia not crossed my path. With no news from the government, us applicants are left to research, digging through news articles and government press releases for any clues. The last time there was a visa backlog this big was the partner visa scheme which was cleared after a few years. It is apparent that offshore applicants are now the new partner visas in that respect. The links below lead me to conclude the reason for these delays go beyond the pandemic:

• Certain PR benefits would be retracted beginning July 1st, 2022 if legislation passes. This is being down in hopes of saving government funds over the next few years, despite population decline and thus an injured economy due to the lack of these migrants.

https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/newly-arrived-residents-waiting-period

• Home Affairs is still prioritising onshore applicants for the 2021-2022 financial year according to this report. In it, visa subclass 190 is the second to last: https://www.mondaq.com/australia/work-visas/1108692/priority-processing-arrangements-for-permanent-skilled-and-temporary-work-visas

• There is fear among a loud minority of politicians who claim immigration leads to depressed wages. On the other hand, the government is prioritising temporary visa holders over permanent residents who plan to settle in Australia for good. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/former-rba-governor-says-immigration-putting-downward-pressure-on-wages-20210709-p588ft.html

• The upcoming federal election may have made policy makers gun-shy about any major decision. UPDATE (21/12/2021): New South Wales is now open to offshore applicants.

Again, the above is all speculation from a burned out mind, unless sourced. With little official information from Australia, there’s not much to go on. Even migration agents seem to brush over the elephant in the room in favour of touting the same pathways to prospective migrants. Hard to blame them when they could risk losing their business if potential migrants choose a different life path. This could be the same reason Australia is coy over the future of applicants lost in limbo.

Bright side is, this all could change soon. Surely, after December 15, 2021 we will see some movement starting early next year. Keeping expectations low is very important to a migrant's mental well-being. We could very well be waiting into 2023 once the 22-23 financial year is announced. Stay sane. My favourite books discovered in 2021:

Do What You Love: The Money Will Follow by Marsha Sinetar, Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, and The True Measure of a Man, Prison Edition by Richard E. Simmons III which gave me a much needed new perspective on this situation. Honourable mention: various Buddhism material has told me that anywhere you don't want to be can be a prison. We can only keep living life the best we can.