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• This week, the Global Immigration team at Smith Stone Walters would like to highlight the following recent updates from Australia, Denmark, Hong Kong, Israel, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States. Australia: Start date set for permanent residence changes The Department of Home Affairs has set a start date of 25 November 2023 (subject to the approval of regulation changes) for its previously announced changes to the employer-sponsored permanent residence programme. From that date, all Temporary Skill Shortage (TSS) (subclass 482) visa holders will be able to access permanent residence via the Temporary Residence Transition (TRT) stream of the Employer Nominated Scheme (ENS) (subclass 186) visa.... Read more...

• Mike Pezzullo has been sacked as head of the home affairs department after a code of conduct breach finding. Mr Pezzullo was stood down after leaked messages revealed the secretary repeatedly inserted himself into the political process. The governor-general in council terminated his appointment on Monday. The texts revealed he lobbied for his department and pushed his personal views, in breach of public service standards, across a five-year period. It is not suggested the messages show corrupt or illegal conduct. Home Affairs Minister Clare O`Neil referred the matter to the Australian Public Service Commissioner after concerns were raised following media reporting of the messages.... Read more...

• Mike Pezzullo has been sacked as head of the home affairs department after a code of conduct breach finding. Mr Pezzullo was stood down after leaked messages revealed the secretary repeatedly inserted himself into the political process. The governor-general in council terminated his appointment on Monday. The texts revealed he lobbied for his department and pushed his personal views, in breach of public service standards, across a five-year period. It is not suggested the messages show corrupt or illegal conduct.... Read more...

• • Staff at South Africa’s embassy in Berlin, Germany are issuing handwritten visas due to faulty printers. • Officials also have to use private wifi routers to connect to the internet. • In June, the Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation conducted a fact-finding oversight visit to embassies in Germany and Portugal. Diplomatic staff at South Africa’s mission in Germany, the country`s third largest trading partner, are issuing handwritten visas because printers are faulty, telephones lines are not working, and officials use private routers to connect to wifi. In June, the Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation conducted a fact-finding oversight visit on the status of the vacant state-owned properties under the management of South Africa’s embassies in Germany and Portugal.... Read more...

• FOR JUST R300 a month, and if you are connected to a woman by the name of Priscilla, you can easily get yourself a foreign national husband. A recent SABC report revealed that a woman identified as Rebone Shabir accused Priscilla of being involved in setting up Limpopo women with Pakistanis as husbands. The SABC reported that several women from Limpopo also stepped forward following their expose of the pre-arranged marriages with spaza shop owners and other foreigners.... Read more...

• Department of International Relations and Cooperation head of public diplomacy Clayson Monyela said the embassy in Germany had a functional visa system, email, telephone, and printers. • South Africa`s embassies across the world are struggling with bandwidth and other ICT challenges. • The Department of International Relations and Cooperation has upgraded several systems, but in some cases, challenges still need to be solved. • The department`s Clayson Monyela says visas are issued manually when systems are down.... Read more...

• Home Affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi caused some confusion this week by claiming that his department was not exacerbating South Africa’s skills crisis because there was no backlog of visas. This comment came just a few weeks after the minister told parliament that the department was sitting with a backlog of over 74,000 visa applications that would only be cleared up by mid-2024.... Read more...

• A wave of ribbon-cutting ceremonies is sweeping the Saudi capital as multinationals face a January deadline to open regional headquarters in the Gulf kingdom or lose out on government contracts. In what has become a common scene, executives in suits and Saudi officials in white robes gather to inaugurate the new offices, sipping Arabic coffee in a haze of incense smoke while singing the praises of last year`s fastest-growing G20 economy.... Read more...

• Migration may be an increasingly contentious issue in South Africa, but that does not justify taking an axe to refugee rights and chipping away at the country’s commitments under the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention, as the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) recently proposed alongside other immigration reforms.... Read more...

• Although South Africa has one of the most progressive asylum laws and exceptional refugee protection frameworks in the world, the disunion between law and practice has allowed the blatant disregard of the law to thrive. The safety and security of the refugees who come to South Africa in the hopes of escaping the injustices of their homeland is internationally regulated by The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“UDHR, 1948”) which is the foundation of international human rights, and, more directly, by the 1951 Refugee Convention (1951 convention) and its 1967 Protocol.... Read more...