Camacho Romero (Migration)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered the case of Mr. Camacho Romero, who held a Student (Temporary) (Class TU) visa, subclass 570. The dispute arose from the cancellation of his visa by the Minister's delegate, who found that Mr. Romero had breached condition 8202 of the Migration Regulations 1994 by not being enrolled in a registered course since 8 January 2016.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was whether Mr. Romero had complied with condition 8202 of his visa. This condition requires the visa holder to be enrolled in a registered course and not to have been certified by their education provider as not achieving satisfactory course progress or attendance. If a breach of this condition was found, the Tribunal then had to consider whether to exercise its discretion to cancel the visa.

The Tribunal acknowledged that Mr. Romero had not been enrolled in a registered course since 8 January 2016, thus technically breaching condition 8202(2). However, the Tribunal found that this non-compliance was due to an error in the Certificate of Enrolment (COE) submitted with his visa application. The COE had erroneously stated a course completion date of 8 November 2016, instead of the correct date of 8 January 2016, which resulted in him being granted a visa with a later expiry date than he should have received. Mr. Romero had completed his studies on the correct date and had attempted to notify the Department of this error via email. The Tribunal considered these circumstances, along with government policy guidelines, in exercising its discretion.

Ultimately, the Tribunal concluded that, in light of the erroneous COE and Mr. Romero's efforts to rectify the situation, the visa should not be cancelled. The Tribunal set aside the delegate's decision and substituted a decision not to cancel Mr. Romero's Subclass 570 visa.