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What will ImmD make of an application to sponsor a dependant visa by a Hong Kong employment visa holding foreign national who doesn’t presently have a job here?

QUESTION

I am in between jobs (currently on an employment visa in Hong Kong) and plan to get married soon (outside HK).

I would like to arrange for my wife to be in Hong Kong post marriage.

As I understand the broad guidelines are to be able to provide for food and shelter.

Can you tell me if being in between jobs is considered to be a negative point when i apply for my wife’s dependent visa here?

Have/can such cases be rejected by the Hong Kong Immigration Department on the basis of being in between employment?

Thank you!

ANSWER

Yes. Unfortunately, I think you’re going to find that this is going to be problematic for you because the essential premise of being able to sponsor a dependent visa, particularly if you are a temporary resident holding an employment visa, is that you have the necessary  income means to be able to support your family upon her relocation to Hong Kong in the wake of your marriage overseas.

So the principal problem is twofold in actual fact. Firstly, if you don’t have a means of income the Immigration Department are going to look askance at your ability to support her. Of course, the kind of funds that you have in your personal bank accounts will help to address that particular issue.

Secondly, and more importantly, is the essential premise behind having an employment visa in Hong Kong. You see, an employment visa is by definition, because it’s a visa, it’s a temporary arrangement. So you’re a temporary resident and the only reason that you have residency in Hong Kong today is because of  your previous ability to persuade the Immigration Department that you could pass the approvability test of having special skills, knowledge and experience of value to not readily available here and that your previous employer, that is your employer, your sponsoring employer of record, um, was able to show that they were justified in engaging your services rather than the services of a local person.

Thus, if the premise behind your residence in Hong Kong is dissipated through the cessation of your employment with your sponsoring employer of record, conceptually the question is begged as to why you are remaining here. Now, the way the immigration department system works is, means that when you get an employment visa, you get two privileges.

You get the privilege to work and you get the privilege to reside at the point of your employment ceasing your privilege to reside stops. Excuse me, your privilege to work stops, um, but your privilege to reside continues until your current limit of stay expires or until the immigration department take your limit of stay away from you, which invariably they never do.

So essentially, whilst you’re presently in Hong Kong with a privilege to reside, an essential precondition of the sponsorship of a dependent visa by a temporary employment visa holding resident is that you be engaged in the employment that the immigration department have granted you the approval for. So, because you effectively fall over in relation to your rationale for being here by way of an existing employment.

Ah, and the fact that you don’t have the means on the paper at least, or the income means to be able to support your new wife when you attempt to sponsor into Hong Kong independent visa. Uh, effectively, your application is going to fall over on two grounds.

Therefore, my best advice for you is to get yourself a new job offer, make an application to change your sponsorship from your previous sponsor through to the new sponsor, get that approval endorsed in your passport, and then put to bed the two problems that you’re going to face with sponsoring a dependent visa, really with 1 st, or one fell swoop, as it were.

So that’s my advice, and I hope you found that useful.

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