Section 501 Visa Cancellation Not Proceeded With — Multiple Offences, Lifelong Australian Resident With Dependent Children

Visa TypeSection 501 / Visa Cancellation

CategoryCharacter / Section 501

Case Summary

An applicant who arrived in Australia from a young age and accumulated multiple criminal offences — including while serving a custodial sentence — faced a notice of intention to cancel his visa. We argued successfully that cancellation would cause disproportionate hardship to his Australian-born dependent children and that he had no connection to his country of birth.

Background

The applicant arrived in Australia from a young age with his parents and had lived in Australia ever since, never returning to his country of birth. A relative approached us after the applicant received a notice of intention to consider cancellation of his visa. At the time the notice was issued, the applicant was incarcerated, serving a custodial sentence for criminal offences accumulated over his period of residence in Australia.

Challenges

Large range of criminal offences accumulated over many years of residence in Australia
Applicant was incarcerated at the time of the notice — the timing and circumstances were particularly difficult
Needed to establish that despite the offending, the harm of deportation to an effectively foreign country outweighed the public interest in cancellation

How We Helped

We addressed the notice by arguing that the applicant's visa should not be cancelled on three principal grounds: the applicant had Australian-born children who were still dependent on him; he had lived in Australia for most of his life and held no meaningful connections to any other country — deportation would be to a country effectively foreign to him; and his behaviour had genuinely changed. We highlighted the disproportionate and permanent family separation that cancellation would cause.

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Key Success Factors

Dependent Australian-born children and the hardship to the family unit if the applicant were removed
The applicant's entire life had been spent in Australia — deportation would send him to a country he had no real connection to
Evidence of changed behaviour and remorse
Framing the cumulative hardship as disproportionate to the cancellation purpose

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Outcome

The argument was accepted and the Department informed the applicant that his visa would not be cancelled.

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