Kaur (Migration)

[2024] AATA 1935

Kaur (Migration) [2024] AATA 1935 (1 May 2024)

DECISION RECORD

DIVISION:Migration & Refugee Division

APPLICANT:  Ms Manpreet Kaur

REPRESENTATIVE:  Mr Robby Singh Sawhney (MARN: 0964652)

CASE NUMBER:  2300391

HOME AFFAIRS REFERENCE(S):          BCC2022/2174317

MEMBER:Michael Bradford

DATE AND TIME OF

ORAL DECISION AND REASONS:         1 May 2024 at 10:24 am (NSW time)

DATE OF WRITTEN RECORD:                7 June 2024

PLACE OF DECISION:  Sydney

DECISION:The Tribunal affirms the decision under review.

Statement made on 07 June 2024 at 4:28pm

CATCHWORDS

MIGRATION – cancellation – Student (Temporary) (Class TU) visa – Subclass 500 (Student) – genuine student – previous course completed early – lengthy gap in studies – family health issues and bereavement – limited academic progress – applicant changed to vocational courses – decision under review affirmed  

LEGISLATION

Migration Act 1958, s 116

APPLICATION FOR REVIEW

Introduction

1. This is an application to review a decision of a delegate of the Minister for Home Affairs who, on 9 January 2023, cancelled the applicant’s Sub-class 500 Student (Temporary) (Class TU) visa under Sec 116 the Migration Act 1958 (the Act).

2. At the hearing on 1 May 2024, I made an oral decision which affirmed the delegate’s decision and gave an oral statement of my reasons for it.

3. More recently the Department of Home Affairs has requested a written record of those reasons.

4. What follows is that record.

   STATEMENT OF REASONS

   Procedural aspects

5. The delegate found, and the applicant has not disputed in the review, that there were grounds on which to cancel her visa under Sec 116(1)(fa) because the applicant was not, or was likely not to be, a genuine student.

6. The only issue I need resolve in this review is whether the applicant’s visa should be cancelled on that ground. 

7. The review application was filed on 11 January 2023 and is therefore within time. 

   Documentary aspects

8. The applicant has filed a comprehensive documentary case in support of the review.  At the time she filed her review application she provided a copy of her statement in response to the NOICC dated 13 December 2022, a submission from her representative, Mr Robby Sawhney, which is dated 14 December 2022, and the documents referred to in that statement.

9. In addition, on 19 March 2024, the applicant provided numerous other documents in support of her case.  These are referred to in the email sent to the Tribunal on 19 March 2024 and consist mainly of medical reports and records, a death certificate relating to the applicant’s uncle, and a copy of some COEs for a package of business courses which were generated on 2 December 2022.

10. This package, in its initial form, consisted of a Diploma of Business, an Advanced Diploma of Business and a Graduate Diploma of Management Learning, at the Trinity Institute.

11. The evidence led in the review is that the applicant completed the Diploma early, in September 2023, some 3 months prior to its scheduled finish date, and is currently enrolled in and studying the Advanced Diploma. According to the COE for this course, it is due to finish in December 2024. The applicant has told me that she is on track to finish it on time. I accept her evidence on this. 

12. The COE for the Graduate Diploma specifies a start date of 9 December 2025 and a projected end date of 7 December 2026. 

13. I am thus satisfied on that evidence that the applicant is currently enrolled in these two courses.

14. In addition to the documentary material in the Tribunal file, I have seen a Departmental file which is of some considerable dimension. It consists of numerous documents but most of which have nothing to do with the issues in this review because they relate to identity issues, the internal investigation having revealed that another person of the same nationality, with the same name, and who was born on the same date as the applicant, also existed.

15. As there is no identity issue of this kind in connection with the review a good deal of the department file is quite irrelevant to the applicant’s review case.

16. Apart from the material in that file which relates exclusively to the identity aspects I do have various other documents on which the applicant relies, among them being a statement of purpose (SOP) which she provided in support of her visa application filed in December 2018 together with the NOICC dated 12 December 2022.

17. There are several other documents in the department’s file which mainly consist of the medical records referred to earlier. I will come back and have a look at these later.

18. There is also a copy of the decision under review and a copy of a certificate given by the Department under Sec 357A of the Act, but which relates only to the documents specified in it, documents which, for reasons already given, do not appear to have any relevance to the applicant’s review case.

19. The applicant has told me today, and I accept, that the first time she knew that her visa was under threat was when she received the NOICC on 12 December 2022. There are prior emails which were sent to this other person, initially in July 2022 and later in early December 2022, but these were not in fact sent to the applicant.

20. It can be seen that the NOICC dated 12 December 2022 was sent to a different email address to those sent to this other person earlier in that year. 

21. In addition to the documents in those two files, I have seen a PRISMS record relating to the applicant’s academic history in Australia and a copy of her Movement Details record, the information in those documents is uncontroversial.

    The hearing, credit aspects

22. The applicant accepted the Tribunal’s invitation to attend the video hearing today, 1 May 2024, by filing a hearing acceptance form. I heard oral evidence from the applicant and her husband, Parminder Singh, over a period of about 1 hour and 10 minutes. To save time, they gave evidence in a hot-tub arrangement as each of them tended to answer questions directed to the other. 

23. During the applicant’s oral evidence, I was told there was another medical report relating to her father which apparently contains a diagnosis of a depressive condition for which he has been undergoing treatment in India as from 2016. I have not been provided with a copy of it but I do accept what the applicant has said on this topic. The applicant’s husband showed me his mobile phone which appeared to contain a copy of this report, and he offered to send it to me, but I do not find it necessary to go down that path. I accept his evidence, and that of the applicant, that her father has in fact been treated for depression in India since in or about 2016.

24. Whilst I have accepted certain aspects of their evidence there are other aspects which I cannot accept. I will come to have a closer look at these other aspects shortly, but parts of their evidence on material factual issues is quite implausible, if not incredulous. For example, their evidence that the applicant’s husband did not know until December 2022 that she was not studying is quite unacceptable.

25. I also cannot accept her repetitive assertions that she has been suffering from depression since she first arrived here in March 2019. There are frequent references to this effect in her statement of 14 December 2022 but, absent credible medical evidence to support this proposition, and that because of this illness she has been unable to engage in productive studies, I am quite unable to accept at face value these self-serving assertions.

26. It is an agreed fact in this case that the applicant has not engaged in studies for a period more than 3.5 years, from early July 2019 to December 2022.  As I have explained in numerous other student cases, as a broad rule the longer the study gap the greater the need for a reasonable explanation, properly evidenced, that the student has been unable to engage in productive study.

27. In this case, there is no credible medical evidence to that effect and indeed, despite the fact that she has been under the care of at least one psychologist, Ms Kwon, in the first half of 2023, and was referred to another psychologist in December 2022, neither of these practitioners have provided a report for use in this case to support the proposition that she had been suffering from depression, let alone that her condition has prevented her from engaging in productive study. 

28. But this is not a case which necessarily turns on their credibility. I need not make any adverse credit findings about either the applicant or her husband although, as I have indicated, parts of their evidence can only be described as incredulous and, because of that, I do approach their evidence on contentious matters with some caution.

    Evidence and other findings

29. The applicant was born in December 1988 in India. She said in her statement, and I accept, that she completed her secondary schooling in a medical faculty in 2018 with a 76 per cent pass. She conveyed the impression in her statement that this was a very good result, and it may well have been. She says in her statement that she was “a bright student”, a comment which appears to be mainly related to her secondary studies. I accept this evidence because her limited studies here, in the Diploma at Trinity, also suggest as much.

30. The visa application was filed in December 2018 (the VA), when the applicant was living in India with her parents, to enable her to study a foundation course leading to a Bachelor of Nursing at UTS.

31. The evidence is that she had completed her secondary studies in 2018 and, in January 2019, was granted a Subclass 500 visa to study those two courses.

32. As I have already said, the VA was supported by a detailed SOP. She told me, and I accept, that it was prepared with the assistance of a migration agent in India. In this statement, she gives some of her family history, educational background, explains a gap in her studies because of a motor accident which took place in July 2015, and the effect of that gap on her eventual completion of her secondary schooling in 2018.

33. She goes on to explain in the SOP why she wanted to study nursing, writes fondly of a possible career in that field, and goes on to explain why she wanted to study nursing in Australia and not India, why she chose UTS as the provider, and mentions that she had conducted extensive research on each of those matters. I accept that she did.

34. She goes on to give a detailed description of the content of the Foundation Studies course and the Bachelor of Nursing and explains how completion of those courses would add value to her future. 

35. In short, she states unequivocally that she wanted to pursue a career as a registered nurse in India and that, after completing the nursing course at UTS, she would go back to India and seek “top jobs” in hospitals, giving some examples along the way. She says that she could easily get a job in these hospitals with a nursing qualification from UTS and explains how this would enable her to make contributions of a broader nature in India.

36. She concludes the SOP by acknowledging the obligations which she saw she had as a student in Australia, including the need for her to maintain attendance in the courses in accordance with UTS requirements. She accepted in her oral evidence that she knew that she had to maintain enrolment in those courses and goes on to discuss other requirements which I need not dwell on.

37. She said to me today, and I accept, that she gave to her agent in India all the information contained in the SOP and that the information was correct. I accept that the statement was prepared by her agent in this way.

38. Although she was only 20 years of age at the time the SOP was prepared, the form and content of this document does not suggest to me that she was immature or naive, indeed quite the contrary. The content suggests to me that she had given considerable thought to what she had done and, more particularly, to what she wanted to do in the future and what she was prepared to do to implement her plans.

39. The visa was granted subject to 8202 and 8516, conditions which are invariably imposed on Student visas of this kind.  These conditions, of course, required the applicant to maintain enrolment in a registered course of study and to maintain eligibility for the visa. She does not dispute, and indeed accepts, that she was aware of these conditions at the time. Each of them is fundamental and mandatory for the grant of a student visa of this kind.

40. It is an agreed fact in this case that the applicant ceased studies in the Foundation program in June 2019, some 3 months after she had begun them. According to the COE for this course, it had a start date of 11 March 2019.

41. Nor is there any dispute in this case that the applicant did not engage in any further studies from 4 June 2019 to 2 December 2022 when she enrolled in the package of business and management courses at the Trinity Institute, a period of about 3.5 years. I have been sitting on these student cases now for more than 5 years and have not encountered a gap of this dimension. On any view, it is an extraordinary gap which, if left unexplained, would ordinarily present an insurmountable obstacle to the successful review of a decision to cancel a student visa.

42. The applicant has referred in her evidence to various events which have occurred during that period which, on one view at least, may go some way towards explaining the issues she had but, absent credible medical evidence that those issues prevented her from engaging in productive study, I am unable to accept that any of them, viewed singularly or together, had that effect.

43. The NOICC refers to the study gap and to the information in the PRISMS record which indicated that the applicant’s COE’s at Trinity were cancelled on 8 February 2020 due to unsatisfactory attendance in the foundation course. 

44. The PRISMS record which I have seen indicates that her enrolment in that course was in fact cancelled on 9 August 2019, which is probably correct because she had, on her own case, ceased studies in the foundation program in early June 2019.

45. Not a lot turns on it, in any event, given the extensive period of no study in question here. The delegate went on to observe in the NOICC that PRISMS indicated that she had ceased studies in the foundation course on 4 June 2019, information which suggested to the delegate that the applicant may not be a genuine student and that her primary intention was to reside in Australia for purposes other than study. The information in the PRISMS record which disclosed a gap of this duration, left unexplained, would provide the delegate with material on which to express that view.

46. The delegate went on to note in the NOICC that, despite having arrived in Australia in March 2019, she had not completed any courses of study, a fact which (he said) contradicted her claims in the SOP.

47. Although the delegate considered that her enrolments at Trinity on 2 December 2022 were in response to the department’s correspondence of the same date, I am satisfied that the applicant never got that correspondence, that it was sent in error to another person.

48. The applicant’s response to the NOICC is reasonably detailed.  As is noted by the delegate in his decision, it consisted of a submission from the applicant’s representative, which really was nothing more than a reiteration of what the applicant had said comprehensively in her statement of 13 December 2022.

49. The statement is a chronology of various events which the applicant says took place after her arrival in Australia and during the period from early March 2019 to November 2022.

50. More particularly, it contains numerous assertions to the effect that she was depressed, very depressed and suffering from chronic depression and anxiety. Although there are repetitive statements to this effect, I cannot give them any real weight absent credible medical evidence to corroborate them.

51. There is other evidence in this statement about which I have concerns. For example, she commences the narrative with an assertion that she was ‘immature and naive’ when she came out here. It is true that she was only 20 years of age at that time, that she had completed her secondary education in 2018, and that she does not appear to have engaged in any tertiary studies or had any commercial experience in India before arriving here in March 2019. But her SOP does not suggest to me that she was immature or naïve at that time.

52. As I have already mentioned, she has told me, and I accept, that she gave all the information referred to in the SOP to her agent. She addressed in that document all the issues she was required to address to support the VA. 

53. It may be that she encountered personal difficulties of the sort she describes in her statement shortly after she came out here. She says that her uncle, who was her sponsor, forced her to leave his house, and it may well be that he did, but I do not know enough about this event to make any meaningful findings about it. I certainly cannot, on this evidence, accept that her uncle was at fault in doing this. It strikes me that there is most probably more to this than meets the eye but I do accept there were personal issues with her uncle and that she left his house because of them. Beyond that, I cannot say. 

54. But she goes on in any event to say that she stayed with various friends despite having earlier said in the statement that she had no-one else here besides him. I accept that she met her husband on Facebook and that he gave her emotional support as from in or about July 2019.

55. She gave oral evidence that she commenced living with him at about that stage when they moved to the Central Coast after he found work there but, after 2 or 3 months, they moved back to Sydney and commenced living at Blacktown.

56. She then refers to an incident which occurred when one of her neighbours assaulted her and she had to go to the Emergency Department of a local hospital after suffering a fall. I have some doubt about her evidence regarding this visit but nothing really turns on it. Certainly, I have no medical record from any hospital to confirm that she sought urgent medical treatment at that stage for any injuries which she might have sustained.

57. I do have a medical record that she sought treatment at the Emergency Department of the Gosford Hospital in February 2020. This record does not contain any history and does not appear to be in relation to the incident she is referring to as having taken place in Blacktown at some later stage.

58. In her oral evidence she told me that she thought she was pregnant in February 2020 and that she went to the Emergency Department of the Gosford Hospital to have her suspicions clarified. Why it was necessary for her to seek urgent medical clarification or treatment I do not know, but it does not matter.

59. She also said in this statement, and I accept, that she began working at an EzyMart store later in 2020. I gather this was in Blacktown. She has given me very little evidence of her ongoing work activities.

60. She has given me some documentary evidence to confirm that another uncle died in India on 17 November 2020. I have seen a death certificate which confirms as much. I also accept that she was close to him. Indeed, she said in her statement that he was practically a second father to her and that they were “extremely close”. I have no reason not to accept this evidence, but it does not take her very far. It may well be that she went through a period of grief because of his death, but I do not accept her assertions that she was unable to engage in productive study for any meaningful period because of it. 

61. In November 2021, she said, and I accept, that she accidentally fell pregnant to her husband and that they decided to have the pregnancy terminated.

62. According to her statement this was a difficult decision and I have no difficulty in accepting that it would have been. I also accept that she would have had natural feelings of guilt and resentment. But it is one thing to accept evidence of this kind, it is quite another to accept that, because of this process, she was unable to engage in productive study for any meaningful period in these circumstances. It may be that she would have been impacted in such a way that the termination would have temporarily affected her ability to engage in productive study, but the simple fact is that she was not studying at that stage and had not been since June 2019. 

1. She then goes on to deal with another event, namely the diagnosis of her father with type 2 diabetes. I have seen a medical report to this effect. I accept that in May 2022 her father was diagnosed with that condition, which happened to be the same condition which led to the death of her uncle in India. I accept this would have been a worry to her but, once again, absent credible medical evidence, I do not accept that she was unable to engage in productive study because of it.

2. She then turns to the events of November 2022. Apparently, she and her husband had an emotional discussion during which she told him that she was ‘very depressed’, that she had not been studying, that she did not want to live any longer, and that she was planning to commit suicide.

3. It is difficult for me on the evidence led to make any definitive findings on what exactly was revealed but one thing I can say is that I do not accept their evidence that her husband did not know that she had not been studying since June 2019. This evidence is at best, in my view, inherently implausible. Two persons who are obviously living together in a de facto relationship would almost certainly know that one of them was not studying, at least in the absence of any evidence on which to suggest that an elaborate and ongoing deception had taken place. Whether her husband was aware of the applicant’s reasons for not studying is another matter, but I do not accept that he did not know that she had not been studying for some 3.5 years prior to November 2022.

4. Under the heading “November 2022” the applicant deals with several other things which, she says, supports her claim that she was depressed at that stage. She refers to the fact that she consulted a general practitioner, namely Dr Jhavevana Useelananthan. I have seen a report dated 12 December 2022 from him which is a referral to another practitioner in the same medical centre, whom the applicant describes as a psychologist, namely Mr Pierre-Louis Lamarque.

5. The referral letter states that Mr Lamarque was to see the applicant regarding depression and anxiety, and it contains some relevant history to the effect that, in 2022, she had anxiety and depression, and it identifies current medications, including Zoloft. 

6. The prescriptions, which are also in evidence, indicate that on 12 December 2022 the applicant had indeed been prescribed with the medications referred to in this letter but there is no evidence that she was ever prescribed any medication for depression or anxiety, by this or any other medical practitioner, prior to 12 December 2022.

7. The letter does not contain, nor does it purport to contain, a considered diagnosis of a depressive or anxiety condition. It is, at best, nothing more than a referral from a general practitioner to a psychologist for the purposes of the psychologist reviewing the applicant, reaching a definitive diagnosis and, if necessary, treating the applicant for whatever condition she was seen to be suffering from.

8. I do not accept that this letter affords credible medical evidence to support the applicant’s case that she was suffering from depression or anxiety, at that or any other point in time. It does not, as the applicant suggests in her statement, support her assertions that she was diagnosed as having “chronic depression and anxiety”. 

9. Furthermore, there is no medical evidence in the form of a report from Mr Lamarque. I was told today that the reason for this is that the applicant never in fact went to see him, that she went to see another practitioner. There are other medical records in the form of invoices from a Ms Rose Kwon which relate to consultations which the applicant had with her in the first half of 2023. 

10. The applicant has told me, and I accept, that Ms Kwon is a registered psychologist. But again, there is no report from her confirming or corroborating the applicant’s assertions regarding her medical condition.

11. Nor is there any suggestion in the applicant’s case that Ms Kwon has made any affirmative diagnosis of depression. I have been provided only with a bundle of invoices relating to amounts which the applicant has paid Ms Kwon for those consultations.

12. I infer from this, left unexplained as it is, that any evidence from Ms Kwon would not have assisted the applicant’s case on the medical issues. Although the applicant has explained why there is no report from Mr Lamarque, she has not explained to me why she never saw him in circumstances where he was practising in the same medical centre as her general practitioner. 

13. The applicant also told me today that she never took any of the medication prescribed for her and endeavoured to explain this by saying that her mother told her not to, evidence which, even if I accepted it, can hardly be said to assist her case. I find it hard to believe that her mother would give her any advice along those lines, still less that the applicant would act on it if she genuinely believed that she was very depressed.

14. I am prepared to infer in this case that she has not taken the medication because she does not think she needs it.

15. The applicant goes on in her statement to recite some medical history regarding her father which she says spans more than 10 years. 

16. Again, although I accept this would likely have been an ongoing concern to the applicant, there is no credible medical evidence to sustain her claim that this had led to a depressive-type illness, let alone to a condition which would have compromised her ability to engage in productive study.

17. Towards the end of her statement the applicant says that, after discussing her situation with her husband, they decided to consult a lawyer to check on her visa status, a step which ultimately led to her enrolments in the package of vocational courses at Trinity.

18. I asked her today why she enrolled in those courses if, as she says in her statement, nursing is still her dream, and something which she wanted to achieve one day. She says that she wants to improve her mental health before she pursues a career as a nurse because it is highly demanding and that, as soon as her doctor her advises her that her mental health is improving, she will undertake a nursing course after she has completed her current program.

19. But this evidence strikes me as being rather illogical. I can understand that she might have wanted to re-engage with her plan to pursue a career in nursing and, to that end, undertake higher level studies in that field. Afterall, she came out here to study nursing in March 2019 and had the opportunity of doing so. She never reached that stage because she did not complete the foundation program for reasons which have never been adequately explained to me. But her stated intention now is to engage with a package of vocational business courses which are not due to finish until late 2026. Given her evidence that she wants to study nursing in Australia once she completes them, this necessarily means she wants to remain here until the end of 2029. 

20. For an applicant such as this one, who has been here since March 2019 and who has completed only one lower level vocational course in that time, namely the Diploma of Business, a course which she completed in 9 months and which appears to be below her academic abilities, and who now wants to complete the other business courses at Trinity before going back to square one and study nursing, I am simply unable to accept that she is a genuine student who wants to remain here primarily for legitimate academic reasons.

21. On any view, her case involves the proposition that she was still suffering from depression in 2023, and that she consulted Ms Kwon almost monthly during the first half of that year. It is not at all clear to me why she was doing that if she was not taking her medication and if she was engaging in productive studies in the Diploma. I am left wondering whether her involvement with Ms Kwon nothing was more than a strategic measure to support her case.  It is hard to see any other logical or rational explanation for it, particularly in the absence of any medical report from her.

22. In any event, the applicant reiterates in her statement what she wants to study but I do not accept that studying for legitimate academic reasons, or to attain realistic occupational goals, is her primary motivation. I cannot see that completion of the business package at Trinity will add any value to her future if, indeed, her future is in nursing.

23. I have gleaned from all this evidence, or at least that which I am prepared to accept, the same impression which the delegate had, namely that her primary motivation is to remain in Australia indefinitely, or for as long as she can.

24. Indeed, in this case it is almost impossible not to make a finding to that effect in circumstances where the applicant belatedly enrols in a business package as extensive as this one, involving as it does an Advanced Diploma and a Graduate Diploma, and does not, on her own case, want to pursue a career in that field. I am quite unable to endorse a study plan which would enable the applicant to remain here until the end of 2029. It is way beyond what I consider to be a reasonable one for an applicant in her position. 

25. She goes on to give some evidence to the effect that, if her visa is cancelled, her father would take it very badly, and it may be that he would. The delegate found that the applicant would be emotionally affected by the cancellation, as would other members of her family, particularly her father. I too am prepared to accept that he is vulnerable by virtue of his ongoing medical issues and that he would be disappointed at this outcome, but beyond that I cannot say. I have no evidence from him but accept what the applicant has said about this and give it some weight against cancellation. But, at the end of the day, the applicant must accept responsibility for her predicament and the broader consequences of it.

26. At the end of the day the applicant has been the author of her own harm and is now left with the responsibility of having to explain to her father why her student visa has been cancelled.

27. The inescapable reality is that the applicant has behaved irresponsibly as a student; she terminated her studies shortly after she had commenced them and did not engage further with them until December 2022 when she consulted a lawyer and was advised to become enrolled. So, what does she then do? She enrols in a package of business course of no apparent relevance to her eventual ambitions and which, if completed, would enable her to remain here until the end of 2026.

28. I also pointed out to her that the Advanced Diploma is due to finish, according to the COE, in December 2024, and the Graduate Diploma is not due to commence until December 2025.   I have been given no acceptable explanation for this hiatus. The applicant and her husband told me that they were not aware of it. Again, I find that difficult to believe given the circumstances in which these enrolments took place. I find it hard to believe that the agent never brought this to their attention, or that they did not otherwise know of it when these COEs were issued, or at any later point in time. 

29. She concludes her statement by accepting that none of the events to which she refers justifies what she has done. I agree. It is not the conduct of a genuine student. Indeed, there is evidence to this broad effect in the department’s file, her agent conceding as much in his correspondence with the department in response to the NOICC.

30. The delegate was not convinced that the applicant had a genuine intention to study, and nothing which she has done since the delegate made his decision in January 2023 convinces me otherwise. She says in her statement that she wants another chance. But the question is another chance to do what? The answer can only be to complete a business package as extensive as this one and of no apparent value to her as a precursor to undertaking a higher level but unrelated Bachelor of Nursing, a course which the department gave her the opportunity to study in early 2019, now more than 5.5 years ago.

31. On any view, these circumstances attract significant adverse weight and militate strongly in favour of cancellation.

32. The explanation that she has given to me for the enrolments in December 2022 is that she came to realise she had to do something. After the discussion with her husband, it was resolved that the “something” had to include consulting a lawyer to work out what she had to do to enhance her position.

33. I broadly agree with the weight that the delegate attributed to the various factors in this case.  He obviously took them into account and, in my view, gave to each of them appropriate weight. More particularly, I agree that the applicant had options which she could and should have pursued if she genuinely believed that her personal issues were such as to interfere with her studies as from June 2019. I do not accept that she was unaware of them.

34. I also agree with the delegate’s finding that her purpose in coming out here was to study. It clearly was. Her passenger card confirms as much as do her early studies in the foundation course. But what has happened since is not consistent with a genuine intention to engage in study for legitimate academic reasons.

35. Although there are some matters, such as the question of hardship, which do point in the other direction, none of them can have a significant countervailing effect in the overall circumstances of this case.

36. In the end, the outcome of this review must be that the delegate’s decision to cancel the applicant’s visa is affirmed. 

    DECISION

37. The Tribunal affirms the decision under review.

    Michael Bradford
    Member