1902701 (Refugee)

The applicant, a citizen of Vietnam, sought review of a delegate's decision to refuse her a protection visa. The applicant had arrived in Australia on a student visa in 2013, which was later cancelled in March 2016, leading to her unlawful residence in Australia. She subsequently applied for a protection visa in January 2019, which was refused by the delegate on 4 February 2019. The applicant then applied to the Tribunal for a review of this decision.

The core legal issues before the Tribunal were whether the applicant met the criteria for a protection visa, specifically whether she was a refugee within the meaning of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth) due to a well-founded fear of persecution in Vietnam. This involved assessing the credibility of her claims regarding her family's persecution due to their Catholic faith and her father's alleged protest against land seizure, and whether these circumstances constituted persecution for reasons of religion or imputed political opinion, leading to serious harm. The Tribunal also had to consider inconsistencies in the applicant's account of events.

The Tribunal affirmed the delegate's decision to refuse the protection visa. The Tribunal found significant inconsistencies in the applicant's evidence regarding the reasons for her family's difficulties in Vietnam. While initially stating her father was prosecuted for his Catholic practice, she later claimed his land was confiscated due to a protest over land seizure, and that his Catholicism was the underlying reason for this. The Tribunal noted that she confirmed her father had not been arrested specifically for his church involvement. Furthermore, the Tribunal found that the applicant had not established a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of religion or imputed political opinion, and that her claims did not meet the threshold for serious harm as defined by the Act. The Tribunal concluded that the applicant did not satisfy the criterion in s.36(2) of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth).