Tuesday, May 30, 2006

I hate the Department of Immigration(warning: big rant)

perhaps I shouldn't post this for fear of them reading this and punishing us further, but it is somewhat anonymous so I think I am safe.

Mr T and I applied a few months ago for his spouse visa, before was his temporary spouse visa which was approved.

We poured our hearts out for that application. It is so bloody time consuming chasing around everything, make copies of everything and then getting everything certified. We provided everything they suggested and more. Photos (of both of us in 4 different countries and more, photos of him with my family and then my friends, even a photo of one of the gift packages he sent to me for valentines day) long stories about where we met etc, phone records showing calls daily while we separated, his text message records showing he messaged me daily while we were separated, testimonials, airline tickets showing our joint holidays, our joint bank account statement showing that we both contribute a small amount each fortnight to our savings, letters, emails, proof that I purchased one ticket here for a holiday as a part of his bday and xmas present, and even a sample little gift tag that we got made from a company that has a little pic of me and him and our name and so much more.

Was that enough though? NO!

Now they are asking for more. Invitations we both received etc. The problem is we haven't received any invitations since we have been living in the same place. No weddings, no big birthday parties. Just verbal or text message invites. They also ask for utilities bills in our name which would be easy if we were renting but we are not at the moment (yes still at mothers place).

I want to scream!

And to make matters worse because it has taken so long he will have to redo the police and health checks. Yes police checks from overseas and health check (including xrays) which isn't exactly cheap.

We are in a genuine relationship, perhaps I should provide my blog address as proof of it. Because I don't know how to provide things that don't exist. What am I supposed to do it, fake it? Fake things for my genuine relationship: fake invites, change a utility bill but only for a month before we move out. Its ridiculous!

Ohh feeling slightly better now I got all of that off my chest!

5 comments:

Ari Sharp said...

"I hate Immigation..." As in the Department of Immigration. Gotchya. Don't we all.

Anyhow:

Ariontheweb would like to invite KRISTY and TOBY to a 23 and seven-twelfths birthday celebration. DIMIA (or whatever they're called thesedays) can send their spies to make sure that there are a sufficient quantity of PDAs.

Harmonia said...

Hi! Thanks for your comments on yesterdays post!

Just posted my MwM.

Sour Duck said...

Hang in there! They sound like a real bureaucracy.

Virginie said...

In France too, they make it more and more difficult. Last month, government though about something new : divise the imigrants
- the imigrants with a visa for less than 6 months (to work for a season)
- the imigrants who made studies and come from occidental countries (easy and great visas)
- the imigrants from poor countries (few visas given, very hard to obtain)
It's screaming ! And nobody moves !

shawna said...

i've been going thru (still kind of am) the EXACT same thing with immigration. fortunately when they looked over the big stack of photos, phone bills, emails, bank account info, airline tickets.... and said we needed things like utility bills with both our names (which we didn't have) and invitations we were lucky that we happened to have a joint invitation to my partner's 2nd cousin's 1st birthday.
it sucks that immigration is so skeptical of genuine relationships becuase of the people who have tried to fake a relationship to get a visa.