An unfortunate incident recently occurred in Sydney when Mohamed Barghachoun was forced to leave his family behind and return to his home country Lebanon due to his migration agent’s shortcomings. The man and his family had recently applied for a partner’s visa to find out later that their migration agent failed to submit it properly.
Mr. Barghachoun moved from Lebanon to Australia to marry his long-time love, Jihan Merhi. Mrs. Merhi began the visa application procedure in 2019 and contacted a migration agent to help guide her. The agent asked Mrs. Merhi for a hefty fee of around 1.5K AUD — which she paid in full.
However, the world came crashing down on the couple when they found out in July that the migration agent had failed to apply for their visa application properly. They later found out the migration agent did so on purpose and was also neglecting warning letters sent by the Australian Immigration Department.
An immigration minister named Andrew Giles contacted the couple and told them about this unfortunate news. The couple was devastated upon hearing that Mr. Barghachoun had to leave the country immediately. Reports show that the couple had provided appropriate proof of their relationship during the visa application. The migration department had tried to get in touch with their agent approximately six times. However, each attempt failed.
According to reports, Mrs. Merhi had attempted to get in touch with the immigration office to inquire about her husband’s visa application status. However, because of the couple’s disability and the immigration department’s inability to assist disabled individuals who are deaf, she was unable to get a proper answer. There have been increasing reports of such incidents and complaints of visa applicants getting scammed by fraudulent migration agents. The immigration department strongly advises applicants to hire only registered and reliable migration and visa consultants like Immigo.
