Fact Sheet 63 – Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme

This scheme gives free, professional migration advice and application assistance to eligible immigration clients. It ceases once the visa applied for has been finally determined as granted, or refused following merits review.

Some clients of the department will need help with visa applications and other immigration issues. The Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme provides professional assistance, free of charge, to the most vulnerable visa applicants to help with the completion and submission of visa applications, liaison with the department and advice on complex immigration matters. It also provides migration advice to prospective visa applicants and sponsors.

Who is the Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme for?

Protection visa applicants in detention and the most disadvantaged protection visa applicants and other visa applicants in the community are able to seek assistance under this scheme. Advice sessions are designed for disadvantaged visa applicants, prospective visa applicants or sponsors in the community.

What counts as disadvantage?

Where a client is in the community, providers will need to examine their circumstances before they can provide advice and assistance to them under the Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme.

A 'disadvantaged person' is one who is in financial hardship and disadvantaged due to:

• non-English speaking background, youth or other cultural issues such as gender barriers
• illiteracy in main language of country of origin
• remote location (outside any Australian capital city, except areas with known registered migration agents)
• physical or psychological disability, including from past torture or trauma
  or
• physical or psychological harm resulting from family violence.

Who provides the advice or assistance?

There are Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme providers around Australia, who are registered migration agents or officers of legal aid commissions. People in the community may choose from 19 of these providers engaged to provide community services. For those who wish to lodge a protection visa application in detention, a provider is allocated and a detainee may accept or refuse the Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme service.

A list of community Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme service providers for 2011–2014 is available below.
See: Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme service providers 2011–2014

Is the assistance or advice independent?

Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme providers are not employed by the department and offer independent, professional immigration assistance and advice.

Do I have to use Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme?

No. Clients may lodge visa applications without assistance and do not need to accept an offer to use Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme services. If clients want to seek immigration assistance from someone who is not an Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme provider, they may arrange assistance at their own cost. Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme is separate from free general legal aid funded by any government, and from any 'pro-bono' or free service that may be offered by some migration agents, including Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme providers.

A little bit of advice or a lot of assistance?

'Application Assistance', full or partial, is where an Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme provider takes significant carriage of an application, at departmental or review levels, in detention or in the community, for the benefit of the client, including interpreting and translating. 'Advice' is where providers simply provide advice in person, by telephone, in groups or individually.

When does Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme stop?

Eligibility for Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme funded assistance ceases whenever a client has been found, both by the department and by the relevant review tribunal as appropriate, not to meet the criteria for the grant of the visa for which they have applied in Australia. The Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme is not available to persons seeking judicial review, or to those requesting Ministerial intervention.

Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme in 2011–2012

In 2011–2012 the cost of providing Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme community and detention onshore services was some $3.6 million, comprising 8947 services for clients in the community.

Further information is available on the department's website.
See: www.immi.gov.au

The department also operates a national general enquiries line.
Telephone: 131 881
Hours of operation: Monday to Friday from 8.30 am to 4.30 pm. Recorded information is available outside these hours.

Fact Sheet 63. Produced by the National Communications Branch, Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Canberra.
Last reviewed January 2013.

© Commonwealth of Australia 2010.