Australian Citizenship by Descent refusal

[Andyman20]

I have recently had my baby son's Citizen by Descent application refused by the Australian embassy in Bangkok. I am appealing this decision in Australia and have just found out that the immigration service is sending two lawyers to the initial mediation session to obviously defend their wrong decision.

I am interested in hearing from anyone who has been in a similar situation with the Australian embassy and what experiences they encountered.

I can elaborate on the circumstances leading up to the refusal but will see how this goes first.

Regards

[tomwct]

Please elaborate!

[MikeyIdea]

You are not giving any details really but I assume that you are sure that it really is your child. I also assume that you are not married to the mother

 

If you are sure it is your child, then it should be good for you to keep this as public as you can

 

I don't know specifically about Australia but there are other countries that also make it difficult allow children to become Citizen by Descent nowadays. Here is my laughable story about Sweden.

I am Swedish, not married and I legitimised my daughter at the amphur and the Swedish embassy in Bangkok refused to accept it and said that they only accept legitimisation by court order.

 

I then went to the district attorney explaining my situation and said that I needed a court order and the district attorney basically laughed and said that he would not allow Thai tax money to be wasted and court would throw it out because I already had everything the Thai courts could give. He advised me that I could let the court just throw it out and use the courts explanation as evidence.

 

I told the Swedish Embassy exactly what the district attorney had told me and the Swedish Embassy made a complete turn around and happily accepted legitimization from Amphur . This was 2006

 

My daughter became a temporary Swedish Citizen and would have to be able to defend a connection to Sweden when she reach majority or she could lose her Swedish Citizenship. A but difficult if I am dead so I temporarily signed her in to Sweden as living with my mother who also will be dead when she reaches majority until the local school woke up and threatened me that parents have a duty to send their children to school by law and icily demanded that I provide evidence that my daughter went to school - I provided Thai private school receipts to keep them quiet, checked that her status had been changed to permanent and then I signed her out of Sweden again. Yeepeee, I had done it. My daughter is now a permanent Swedish citizen

 

Getting more difficult almost everywhere I think

[Andyman20]

As far as Thailand is concerned it is all ok.

My name on birth certificate. Initially a Thai name for the lad because the mother couldn't spell my last name so left it off with a 'to be advised' notification. I was always complaining that people kept spelling my name incorrectly in Australia and I had to waste time correcting it all the time so I think she thought that was the best option.

Once my name was on the birth certificate we had to go an get a name change for the lad's surname. All done without fuss so everything is cool on the Thai side. He's even got a Thai passport all sorted within 25 minutes at the Amphur. 

The problems started when I applied for CbD at the embassy in Bangkok. What I thought was a routine registration turned into a nightmare lasting over three months of emails going back and forth with the embassy asking for this and that but never really wanting to do the job of registration.

Finally they asked for a DNA test to be done which to me was a waste of money and yet another hurdle in their long road to say no. I refused for half a dozen reasons not least of being that they had believed nothing of what was submitted to them already including a DNA certificate that was done at the mother's insistence in the US. Also by default suggesting the Thais were lying to them.

These people seem to think they are overlords with some divine right to screw up your life. If they want to carry on like that then they can at least do the proper investigation into whether the child is really mine. This was not even attempted. The lame excuse eventually given was that I was not at the birth, therefore he's not mine. So if I had undertaken the DNA (again!!) they could still have given the same finding. Another fact; I was there for the birth and at no stage did I ever say I wasn't. 

I am due to go to appeal next month and would be interested to know if anyone else has had a similar experience with these clowns so I can add a bit of extra information to my case.

 

[MikeyIdea]

Your name on the birth certificate means nothing, that is surely not accepted as evidence that you are father in Australia or anywhere else

 

I do not know Australian rules but Sweden has  the specific rules that the father either

1) must be legitimized by court decision or

2) must be married to the mother or

3) DNA evidence must be provided

 

The embassies normally post the rules for citizen by descent on their web site. What are the exact Australian rules?

 

If they don't provide that in writing, then ask for it

 

Sorry for all the duplicate posts, the screen just hung

 

 

Edited September 13, 2016 by MikeyIdea

[Andyman20]

I provided everything that was asked for.

If a DNA is the be all and end all, just dispense with everything else. It could have been done while we were in Bangkok at the beginning. 

Obviously no-one has been in a similar situation recently, so I'll save the rest of the details for the court case.

Thanks to those who replied.

I'll post how it comes out next month.

[Clamhua]

Best of luck Andy. I hope it works out for you

 

My kids were born in Malaysia. I did not have the same issue as you but I did have some issues, Australian High Comms are not as friendly to aussies as they could/should be

[snooze]

What were the reasons for refusal? They should have given you something in writing as to why they refused you?


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[blackcab]

There are two ways forward. 

 

1. You can rear up and give them lots of pushback and see what happens. That seems like hard work to me, to be honest.

 

2. Do the DNA test. There's no disputing that.

 

Ultimately you have to consider your goal. Do you want to win an argument or do you want to get your child's citizenship sorted?

 

Speaking for myself, I wouldn't mess around with this sort of life changing document. 

[TheBoar]

Interesting thread. How did you go in the end? Currently applying for my niece (brother's kid). I thought it be a straight up process too. Pretty much gave them everything after going back and forward and now stuck on the last hurdle as they wanted to see the 12 months movement of stamps prior to the baby being born. Gave them all the stamps and now they are asking to clarify the missing four days.

 

I dont know why the movement stamp is relevant. The issue is now the fact that my brother is a dual citizen and both of his passports birthplaces doesnt match up due to an admin error.

 

I am hoping this wont be a drama and hope common sense prevail. I think if we were dealing with Australian staff then common sense might prevail but dealing with local staff working for the Australia embassy is another story.

 

 

[upside]

Why would you refuse a DNA test which would give you the most leverage in proof when it's nothing more than a mouth swab probably 

 

It just seems obvious to me 

[Kenny202]

I got my son's CBD relatively easy from the Aus embassy. Had plenty of proof of length of relationship, photos etc but only took 3 days. No dna

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Thaivisa Connect mobile app