Resident of 17 years forced to return to Korea due to visa backlog
A young Adelaide man says he's being forced to leave his home of nearly two decades because of an agonisingly long wait to get a new visa. Experts say immigration backlogs and a lack of pathways to permanent residency are forcing migrants out of the country prematurely.
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00:00 Sockie Lee grew up in Australia, but a years-long visa process means he's now moving back to
00:07 Korea with his family.
00:10 I had school, I had work, now we're here, but I don't know, everything seems to change.
00:17 Mr Lee moved here with his mother in 2006 to join his sister, who's now a citizen after
00:23 being sponsored by her work.
00:27 Lee and his mother have been living on bridging visas since.
00:31 In 2017, when he was 16 years old, Mr Lee's mother applied for permanent residency and
00:37 included him as a dependent.
00:39 But in March this year, his visa was refused because he had just turned 23.
00:44 Under the visa criteria, if Mr Lee was still 22, he may have still been eligible for residency.
00:51 Mr Lee had plans to study once he was on a permanent visa so he could access cheaper
00:56 fees.
00:56 When I go to Korea, I have to go to the national services for two years now.
01:00 That is compulsory, so I have to sort of find a job through the army.
01:07 Earlier this year, a review commissioned by the federal government found that the immigration
01:12 system was not fit for purpose and that the country needed to offer migrants on temporary
01:16 visas a clear pathway to permanency.
01:20 The government has outlined a new strategy, taking on some of the review's key recommendations,
01:25 and says it's hired 600 new staff to process visas and nearly halved on-hand applications
01:32 from a million in June last year.
01:34 Ideally, they would get the backlog down to the hundreds of thousands.
01:40 So I think hiring more staff would be good.
01:44 Experts admit the government faces a challenge, but say migrants shouldn't be left in limbo.
01:50 The communication about the stages, any transitional arrangements, is very important.
01:56 When my family goes back, we can't really get a suitable, like a job, because we've
02:02 been living here for so long.
02:03 Stepping into an uncertain future.
02:06 [BLANK_AUDIO]