A random luggage search at Melbourne’s Avalon Airport led to an Indian woman’s visitor visa being cancelled and her deportation after Border Force officers found her academic certificates in the luggage.
23-year-old Ms Kaur touched down at Avalon airport on Monday night at the invitation of her uncle and aunt but was hauled for a baggage check by Border Force officers as she had declared some medicines on her immigration card.
“I was carrying some painkillers with me and there were some snacks that I was carrying from Amritsar to eat during my flight and I declared that. I think that was the reason I was called for baggage checking,” Ms Kaur told SBS Punjabi over the phone from Kuala Lumpur where she has been in transit for over 48 hours.
She was questioned for several hours as her uncle and aunt waited outside to receive her.
“We were outside the airport terminal at around 9:30 pm and waited until 5 in the morning and immigration officers came out to ask us some questions about how long she would stay with us etc,” Ms Kaur’s aunt Raman said.
“If we knew she was going to bring her certificates, we would have told her not to do so.
“We just wanted to show her around here and we were going to go to Singapore for a vacation on Christmas,” Raman said.
When the officers opened Ms Kaur’s luggage, they found an IELTS certificate and other academic certificate concealed in clothing. She couldn’t give any explanation as to why she had brought the certificates.
Border Force officers also found that Ms Kaur was carrying only $100 and said she intended to stay in Australia for three months while her uncle told them she’d be with them in Australia for one month. She couldn’t name the places she intended to see other than “beautiful parks and hotels”.
“These factors do not appear to be consistent with the behaviour of a genuine [visitor visa] holder as [she] has no knowledge of Australia, accommodation for one month, insufficient funds to support her stay and she is in possession of all her educational documents,” the ABF officer noted in the decision to cancel Ms Kaur’s visa.
Migration agent Jujhar Bajwa says a genuine intention of not staying in Australia temporarily is a ground for visa cancellation.
“The information mismatch between what she said in the interview and her visa application is definitely problematic but the certificates in her suitcase would have indicated that she was perhaps interested in looking for work or studying here and in some way extend her stay which is contrary to visitor visa conditions,” he told SBS Punjabi.
Ms Kaur said she got confused and did make “some mistakes” during the interview.
“But that doesn’t mean I should be handcuffed and made to feel like criminals. This was so embarrassing for me. If I knew, I wouldn’t have taken the trip in the first place,” she said.
Ms Kaur was taken to Broadmeadows detention centre and was put on a flight to Kuala Lumpur the next day. She’s due to board her flight to India on Friday evening.
“I’m here for the last two days with just one blanket, sleeping at the benches and chairs. I just want to get this nightmare over,” she said.
