Seok Hee Lee grew up in Australia but will soon be forced to leave after his visa application was rejected when he aged out of the category during a six-year processing delay.
“If my family goes back, we can’t really get a decent job because we’ve lived here for so long,” Mr Lee said.
Mr Lee and his mother migrated to Australia from South Korea about 17 years ago to join his sister, who is now a citizen after being sponsored through hospitality work.
They have been living in Australia on temporary visas ever since.
Mr Lee’s family recently sold their sushi restaurant in Henley Beach after running it for five years, and he said his family’s qualifications meant their financial prospects were limited.
“You’ll never make that much money in Korea unless you’re a really highly paid worker, like a doctor,” he said.
“I have to do national service for two years, that is compulsory.
“I have to find a job through the army.”
In early 2017, when Mr Lee was almost 17, his mother applied for a permanent residency visa for her parents and included him as a dependent child.
While his mother was granted residency in March this year, Mr Lee found out that his visa had been rejected because he no longer met the age requirements.
“We also bought a house in the middle of last year, now we have to sell everything,” Mr Lee said.
“I miss the things I didn’t do or couldn’t do.
“It’s huge because I know everyone here – I even started coaching volleyball.”
Migrants left in ‘permanent’ limbo
The Lee family applied for the Contributory Parent Visa, which has a much shorter processing time than other parent visas – but also an additional fee of more than $40,000 once approved.
The visa requires a dependent who is over 23 at the time of the decision to prove they are “unable to work” in order to be considered “wholly or substantially dependent” on the primary applicant.
Mr Lee turned 23 two months before his visa application was refused, more than six years after he applied.
His mother decided it was not worth paying the costly fees to accept her residency if her son could not stay in the country.
According to the Home Office website, Contributory Parent Visas completed in 2022-23 had an average waiting time of six years – but the waiting time for new applications has doubled.
By comparison, other parent and aged parent visas now have a processing time of almost 29 years.
In March, a comprehensive review of Australia’s immigration system commissioned by the federal government found that the country relies too heavily on temporary migrants without providing clear pathways to permanent residency.
It also identified immigration backlogs as a major problem.
The review found that community confidence in the migration system had been “undermined”.
“Had they been asked, it is hard to imagine Australians willingly agreeing to the creation of a ‘permanent’ cohort of workers, similar to guest workers in some other countries,” the review said.
In response to the review, the federal government has outlined a revised migration strategy that takes on board some of the key recommendations.
But while it acknowledged the need to reform the parent visa programme, it said this would be considered separately.
The final migration strategy is expected to be published later this year.
A Home Office spokesman said nearly 600 new staff had been recruited in the last financial year to support the processing of temporary and migration visas.
“The total number of applications, including permanent visas which are subject to migration programme planning levels, is almost 40 per cent lower than the almost 1 million applications in June 2022,” the spokesperson said.
Migration expert and associate professor at the University of Sydney, Anna Boucher, said the federal government was facing a “challenging” situation.
“There has also been an increase in visa applications at the same time as they are trying to clear the backlog,” Dr Boucher said.
“Ideally, they would like to get the backlog down to the hundreds of thousands, so hiring more staff would be good.”
Parental visas need ‘attention and improvement
Dr Boucher said many migrants on temporary visas felt they were in a “state of flux” while the government undertook a “massive overhaul of the migration system”.
“We know that temporary migrants don’t have access to the social security system or Medicare,” she said.
“I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon.
“But at least clear communication about the stages, any transitional arrangements, is very important.”
Migration lawyer Zefy Souvlakis said while Mr Lee’s case was not common, lengthy processing times posed challenges for children included on parent visas.
“It is an area that requires attention and improvement,” she said.
“Especially for the contributory parent visa, where applicants are required to contribute a large amount of funds in government charges to allow for what is expected to be faster processing.”
For now, Mr Lee and his family will have to try and adjust to their lives in Korea.
He said he felt like the visa was a “little bit of a waste of time”.
“I had school, I had work,” he said.
“Everything seems to have changed now.”
