Australia`s federal government is curtailing the intake of permanent immigrants, but it is dwarfed by a sharp increase in the number of cross-bridge visas issued by the Australian government.
The number of people holding bridge visas-the same as those for Commonwealth Games athletes seeking asylum-has reached an all-time high.
By the end of March, a total of 195000 people had been granted bridge visas in Australia, including more than 37000 unspecified nationalities.
That number rose by more than 40,000 a year ago, according to the Ministry of the Interior, and has increased by nearly 90,000 since 2014.
That also brought the number of people holding temporary visas to more than 2.2 million, another all-time high. Cross-bridge visas are usually granted to immigrants who hold an Australian substantive visa, (Substantive Australian Visa).
Jonathan Granger (Jonathan Granger), head of the Granger Australia and former head of the Australian Immigration Institute, said the immigration plan was a mess.
He said the resources available to the government every year were limited, but the reform agenda introduced by the government had not been carefully considered, required transitional arrangements and required multiple procedures for processing the same visa, resulting in serious delays.
Australian Prime Minister Tan Po, who is trying to cut immigration, has said the government is planning to reduce the number of permanent immigrants from the traditional one hundred and ninety thousand a year to about one hundred and seventy thousand this year.
But that number is negligible compared to the size of the bridge-crossing visa program.
Over the past year, another 150000 visitors have been granted temporary visas in Australia, including an increase of 33000 foreign students.
Many of them, such as students, backpackers and many cross-border visa holders, have more rights to work.
Granger said the surge in cross-bridge visas could be caused by a combination of factors, including increased applications due to major project changes and cuts in departmental resources.
Over the past year, the government has overhauled temporary and permanent immigration programs.
Among the main categories of visas, including temporary skills shortage visas (457 visas), employer-guaranteed visas and skills-independent visas, applications have increased in recent years, Granger said.
A spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior said that the processing time was affected by a number of factors, including:
Number of requests received
Whether the application information is complete or not
Rate of response of applicants to requests made by the processing department
Complexity of assessment of health, integrity and national security requirements
Mysterious 37000 people.
The surge in cross-bridge visas is due in part to 37000 mysterious holders of cross-bridge visas, and the Home Office will not disclose their nationality.
The Ministry of the Interior declined to provide more explanation for this group.
Granger said changes in immigration plans and a lack of resources meant that the Administrative Appeals Tribunal would have to review a growing number of visa denial cases.
"these changes resulted in some visas being rejected for no reason and transferring time delays and costs to the Appeals Court," he said. The Court of Appeal is also wasting resources, and they have to decide on simple visa issues. "
The average processing time for temporary work visas by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in the past six months has been 381 days, up from 286 days a year earlier.
Wayne Parser, Ernst & Young`s immigration partner, said it was impossible to determine the "root cause" of the increase in "bridge-crossing visas" without further information.
He said the surge in application rates across different visa categories provides an insight into the reasons for the increase in processing time for different types of visas, looking at the number of people who have refused visas in different categories.
Parser said many of his clients were already applying for bridge visas and that if they needed to travel, such as business trips or family visits, they would be asked to prepare separate bridge visas, which would also impose an additional administrative burden on the department.
