COVID-19: Hundreds of thousands stranded Australian temporary visa holders and the lucky few allowed to enter

Hundreds of thousands of Australian temporary residents are stranded overseas due to Australia’s strict border closures, while just over 10,000 temporary visa holders were granted travel exemptions to enter Australia, most to transit to third countries. A similar number of exemptions were granted to Australian citizens and permanent residents to leave.

Governments around the world continue to grapple with COVID-19 while attempting to avoid economic disaster. Australia has maintained its international border closure allowing all but a few temporary residents to return and a similar number of Australian citizens or permanent residents to leave. Freedom of Information (FOI) requests show just how many temporary visa holders are overseas and how comparatively few have been granted a travel exemption to return.

As of 31 May 2020, there were roughly 5.1 million temporary visa holders offshore. It should be noted that 4.4 million of these people hold visitor visas, and just over 500,000 hold Subclass 988 – Maritime Crew visas, which are for crew members of non-military ships on international voyagers.

Excluding these visas, this leaves roughly 255,000 temporary visa holders. The acting Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs has provided special arrangements for sponsored temporary workers (Subclass 457 – Temporary Work Skilled visa and Subclass 482 – Temporary Skill Shortage visa) and more recently Subclass 500 – Student visa holders in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The numbers are, however, particularly large.

Victoria is currently the only state undergoing a second and harsher lockdown. Despite this, businesses in all states and territories may require their offshore temporary visa holder employee who could be one of the 25,000 or so 457 visa or 482/TSS visa holders unable to enter Australia. Furthermore, there are other visas listed that grant unrestricted work rights, such as the Subclass 461 – New Zealand Citizen Family Relationship (Temporary) visa for which 1,429 of these visa holders were offshore, and Subclass 485 Temporary Graduate visa for which 12,283 of these visa holders were offshore.

Potentially disastrous are the 5,248 Subclass – 020 Bridging B visa holders overseas. This is because these visas will expire unless they return before a specified date and should this happen they will have to be granted a different visa to enter Australia once travel restrictions are lifted, then apply to reinstate their Subclass 010 Bridging A visa. Bridging B visas cannot be applied for or be granted when the applicant is outside Australia.

The list of travel exemptions appear to have been revised with an emphasis on critical skills and sectors for either responding to COVID-19 or to assist with economic recovery. Home Affairs has also updated the platform for travel exemption request applications, signalling such restrictions may be in place for some time to come. The immediate family member exemption for partners, dependent children or legal guardians of Australian citizens or permanent residents has never changed since the border closure was announced.

As of 22 June 2020, 10,961 travel exemptions were granted to temporary visa holders to enter Australia. The visa majority of these (over 60 per cent) were transit passengers entering to facilitate travel to another country, with only 1740 (16 per cent) exemptions granted on compassionate grounds. Given the large disparity in numbers overseas as of 31 May 2020 and the few travel exemptions granted by 22 June 2020, many will be in the unfortunate situation of having their visa expiring while overseas, especially since the latest indication of borders opening is not until 2021. This would be dire should they have had employment in Australia or plans to lodge a further visa application which would have granted them an associated bridging visa to remain until their visa application has been decided.

As for outbound travel exemptions for Australian citizens and permanent residents, just over 10,000 were granted. Over half of these grants were for compassionate reasons and over a quarter were for personal business reasons. While some countries, including many from the European Union are accepting tourists, even from Australia, only Australian citizens who are already overseas or who are usually resident overseas will be able to take up the offer as travelling for tourism is banned until further notice. One has already tried and failed to challenge the ban.