Refugee Visa Form Filler

Currently, Australia’s refugee visa form is over 30 pages in length, complex, and only provided in English. These characteristics impede the majority of people who wish to complete the form on their own as asylum seekers typically have low levels of English literacy and have limited financial resources. The administrative process of completing the form operates as a barrier to obtaining refugee status as the form can only be adequately completed by a person who has significant experience in completing the form, has access to relevant legal information, and has strong English comprehension.

To overcome the barrier to completion, TSHR has developed a mobile application, 'Refugee Application', that assists a user to complete Australia’s refugee status form. In short, the mobile appliction transforms a paper process to a digital process and provides accessibility by building in legal advice, providing the form in multiple languages, and creating question logic that reduces the number of questions required to be answered.

The Refugee Application is also intended to be utilised by community organisations that assist asylum seekers in their immigration work. Currently, most organisations spend considerable time to complete the refugee visa form, which takes away time from the substantive aspect of refugee work such as taking the witness statement or creating the legal argument to advance the asylum seeker's case. TSHR hopes that the Refugee Application will reduce the administrative burden placed on organisations by providing the asylum seeker with a meaningful opportunity to complete the form independently, which will enable organisations to focus the substantive aspects of the case and provide autonomy to the asylum seeker over their own application.

Currently, the Refugee Application consists of questionnaire that reflects the questions on the refugee visa form. The user is required to answer the questions as they appear on the phone screen and at the end of the questionnaire, the Refugee Application saves the answers to the actual visa form. The user is then permitted to print or send the form to their immigration agent for review or filing.

Like all TSHR products, the Refugee Application does not store any information.

Please contact TSHR at lawitapps@gmail.com if you would like to view or use the Refugee Application.