Fully sponsored Ukrainian mother, children denied entry to Australia & More News Here

“Now they’re in a situation where Odessa is being bombed every week or so.

“The troops are moving towards them. They just have one more city before Odessa, so once that city falls, Odessa is going to be under attack.”

Last week the household’s visa purposes have been rejected on the grounds that they didn’t adjust to migration necessities and had not “sufficiently demonstrated they intend only to visit Australia temporarily, or that their circumstances are an incentive to return to their home country”.

The Australian authorities was estimated to have rejected a whole bunch of Ukrainian refugees, and immigration attorneys have been working to assist a number of households at a time.

“When the war started, the Australian government set up this process where you could apply for a visitor visa, and once you arrive in Australia, you can apply for the special refugee visa,” Baptista stated.

“Now you can only apply for the special refugee visa, [but] you can only apply for the special refugee visa if you are in Australia.

“What has happened in the last three to four weeks is that they’ve decided that Ukrainians, because they’re intending to stay longer, they no longer comply with the visitor visa rules, which state that you need to go back, you’re just visiting, you’re not staying in Australia.”

This shouldn’t be the primary time the household has endured conflict. They initially lived in jap Ukraine in Donetsk, however when Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, they moved to Odessa.

“I know the beginning was rough. They had to live in a one-bedroom apartment with many relatives. But then they found jobs and started to rebuild their lives,” Baptista stated.

The scenario now could be exacerbated by a scarcity of jobs, Baptista stated. Kovalova misplaced her job within the HR division of a manufacturing facility as a result of it closed when the conflict started.

“Her partner worked in a baby products company, and now with all the kids, babies and mothers leaving, they’re actually cutting down his hours,” she stated.

“They’ve decided to leave the father behind because he’s not allowed to leave [because of conscription in Ukraine].”

A Home Affairs spokesperson stated the division wouldn’t touch upon particular person instances however was prioritising visa purposes from Ukrainian nationals, “particularly those with a strong, personal connection to Australia”.

The division stated purposes have been assessed on advantage and regarded towards the necessities for a customer visa set out in laws.

Since February 23, the division stated it had granted greater than 8000, largely non permanent, visas to Ukrainians, and over 3200 of the visa holders had arrived in Australia.

Kateryna Argyrou, co-chair of the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations, stated whereas there have been no official statistics on the variety of Ukrainians being rejected, judging by the quantity of people that had reached out to the group, it might be within the a whole bunch.

“The biggest challenge with the visa application process currently is the massive financial burden of medical check fees,” Argyrou stated.

She stated the bulk of people that did arrive from Ukraine have been girls and children, and there have been challenges as soon as they landed in Australia.

“Some of them arrive with nothing more than a small suitcase to their name, they don’t have the necessary level of English yet in order to immediately enter the workforce, and they still have to find a way to take care of their children,” Argyrou stated.

The course of to transition to a 786 visa, which is simply obtainable to Ukrainian refugees already in Australia, can also be problematic, she stated.

“If they can’t afford to pay for the medical check fees – usually $330 to 430 per person, or more than $1000 for a mother with two children – they will not be able to transition from the 449 visa to the 786 visa, which provides access to Medicare,” she stated.

“So our fear right now is that mothers, babies, and the elderly will be stuck in limbo and will not be able to get basic health care or access to GPs, which is very worrying.”

Argyrou stated the medical verify payment problem had been raised, and the federation was in discussions with Home Affairs making an attempt to discover a answer.