Sunshine Coast family faces deportation

JANNIE and Amanda Klue, their eyes wide with desperation, are staring at two distinctly different futures.

One future embodies the Australian dream: running their own business, living in their own house, building community ties and watching their two children, Jan-Sari, 9, and Pieter-Nick, 6, flourish in an environment that is far removed from their homeland.

The Klues have been living that dream since migrating to the Sunshine Coast from South Africa 22 months ago.

The other future is a bleak one: a barb wire-fenced home with security cameras, guard dogs and streets deemed too unsafe for their children.

The Klues lived that nightmare in South Africa. And now they have been told they must return to it.

Having sold everything before moving to Australian on Christmas Day, 2007, the family must leave the country after their application for a state-sponsored business-owner visa has been rejected.

On Monday, the Klues learned they have until October 19 to get out of the country after they received two-week bridging visas.

In a bid to stave off deportation. Jan-Sari wrote a letter to Anna Bligh this week, in which she pleaded with the premier to help her family.

“We don’t want to leave Australia,” she wrote. 

“My mum and dad has (sic) come to Australia for my brother and my future.”

Mr Klue said on Friday that he had bought a business – Middy’s grocery store at Buderim – as required under the business-owner visa and had ticked every other box, bar one.

He said he couldn’t sufficiently prove to immigration officials that one of the two money-lending businesses he had owned in South Africa was actually his and, as a result, the family didn’t meet the visa’s minimum-assets requirement.

“I thought everything would work out,” Mr Klue said.

“I’m not a fugitive or a criminal … they will show discretion and let commonsense prevail.”

Fighting tears, Mrs Klue described the situation as “unreal”.

“It shouldn’t have come to this,” she said.

Mrs Klue said her children were well-established at Buderim Mountain Primary School and the family now considered themselves Aussies.

An immigration spokeswoman said the Klues simply didn’t meet the criteria for a state-sponsored business-owner visa, and then failed to lodge their appeal against the ruling on time.

She said applicants must show they owned and directly managed a business with a turnover of at least $300,000 for two of the past four fiscal years, or had a successful record as a senior manager.

“Entering Australia on a temporary visa does not mean you have an ongoing right to remain in Australia,” she said.

A spokesman for Ms Bligh said while immigration was a federal government matter, state officials were talking to immigration officials about the Klues’ case.

Source  :  http://www.finda.com.au/story/2009/10/10/sunshine-coast-family-faces-deportation/

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Marriage scamming for permanent residency

Immigration to our shores is running at record levels and so too is the boom in illegal immigrants.

Some are scamming permanent residency is to catch and marry single Aussies. Immigration officials are cracking down on fake marriages, but  sometimes impossible to know when love is true or false. 

Over the last ten years spousal visa applications to Australia jumped from 26,000 to 40,000 a year. Many phoney fiancés and spouses were kicked out last year. 

Less than three per cent of applicants are investigated. 

The process requires foreign spouses to live with their partner for two years and they may be tested on their truthfulness by the Bona Fide units, set up in states across the country.

Differentiating between love and fraud is not a given, what we are interested in determining is that the evidence and the paperwork and the documentation put before us is true and accurate that it is not a forged document. 

They’re even more brazen in India where migration agents and internet surfers state plainly what they want, with posts including: “Paper marriage for Australia” and “Looking for a girl to do a paper marriage just to get residency in Australia.” 

The Times of India newspaper detailed how brides and grooms are contracted to marry, just so they can move here. 

If they are operating in India, or in China, or in Canada, or in the UK or anywhere overseas, our laws don’t control their activities

Act, under visa fraud it can include cancellation of the visa, and ultimately removal from the country. In the least we can refuse and we often do in 3000 instances to grant a visa in the last financial year. 

Dob-In Line: 1800 009 623

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Aussies win ‘Ashes’ cricket in Hollywood

Entertainment

The sun shone. The beer flowed. The Four’n Twenty meat pies were a hit. The Aussies thrashed the Poms. The Americans were largely clueless about what they were watching.

That sums up the second annual Westfield Hollywood Ashes cricket match held on the picturesque Woodley Park cricket field in Los Angeles on Saturday, with retired Australian paceman victory.

leading a team of Australian celebrities and ring-ins to a 29 run victory.

England were the favourites for the Twenty 20 contest.

At last year’s inaugural Hollywood Ashes, England scored a one run upset victory over an Australian team led by one of the all-time greats, Steve Waugh.

With lanky 65 test veteran Graham Hick at the helm this year, the English team also included actor Julian Sands, a star of the action TV series 24, and 65-year-old UK and US Dancing with the Stars judge Len Goodman.

England also had plenty of celebrities in the VIP tent, including Monty Python funnyman Eric Idle and comedienne Tracey Ullman, the game’s official “coin tosser”.

“It is one of the greatest wins of my entire cricket career,” Kasprowicz, a 38 test and 43 one day international veteran for Australia, said with tongue firmly implanted in cheek.

“Nineteen years of first class cricket, so yeah, as you can see it is a big moment.

“I’m glowing.”

Australia batted first and set the healthy target of 153, with Kasprowicz the top scorer with 29 not out off 17 balls, and former Perfect Match host Cameron Daddo drawing on his high school cricket days to add a quick fire 23 off 17 balls.

England managed just 135, with Hick scoring 20 not out.

Jessie Spencer , a star on the TV series House, and celebrity chef Curtis Stone, were late scratchings from the Australian team but former Calvin Klein underwear model model Travis Fimmel was a favourite among the female fans in the 800 or so strong crowd.

Fimmel, however, was limp with the bat, scoring a duck.

Kasprowicz gave a one word answer when asked after the victory if any members of his team may be good enough to sneak a spot in Australia’s test or one day team.

“No,” Kasprowicz replied.

Daddo was not so sure.

“I disagree with that,” LA-based Daddo, 44, who has appeared in numerous US TV series including 24, Without a Trace and Boston Legal, said.

“I think Travis has a good shot and I think I can carry the drinks for the test team.”

The biggest laugh came when an American spectator watching her first cricket game asked why it was called “The Ashes”.

“Who died?” she asked.

http://www.thewest.com.au

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