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Over 225 illegal workers detained in visa fraud crackdown At least 40 illegal workers were detained in Perth during a nation-wide crackdown on visa fraud on Monday. The Australian Border Force had been carrying raids across the country at both business and residential properties under Operation Bonasus. So far country-wide, 225 illegal foreign workers from Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Tunisia, Pakistan and Bangladesh have been located in industries including agriculture, retail and hospitality. In addition, more than 300 individuals were refused entry to Australia as part of the operation.

Cheat-codes: Employing ‘ghost-writers’ for competency demonstration reports is a bad idea Preparing competency demonstration reports (CDRs) required by Engineers Australia for qualification assessment for engineers migrating to Australia baffles everyone, and to say the least it is perfectly normal and natural to feel that way. While it is no rocket science, I have increasingly noticed engineer migration visa applicants hiring services of other people to write these reports for them. Most of these writers hired for the job are not even engineers themselves. This is one major reason applicants get a negative assessment, ending up in a bigger mess; and others ending up giving huge, and totally unnecessary, amount of money to these writers. This is wrong on many levels but most importantly a compromise on one’s rectitude. Engineers Australia expects applicants to write their reports themselves so the assessors can have an insight into the applicant’s qualifications and competencies, among other things they count. By asking other people or companies to write these reports is unlawful by both the applicant and the company providing such services. It is like hiring a professional writer to write a thesis/dissertation for you and then walking proudly down that isle on your graduation day to get that degree. Things don’t match here, do they? It’s becoming annoying to see the number of such companies to have increased two-folds in the last decade, mainly outside of Australia, who are very confidently approaching Migration Agents and visa applicants to use their services. Recently, my team working around some visa applications was contacted by a company offering to write CDRs on behalf of engineers for a fee. In one of these instances, they claimed to have “a team of Engineering Graduates performing the CDR writing activities”. This has been unnoticed but is a huge problem because if engineer applicants are not writing their career episodes themselves, Engineers Australia cannot know if the applicant is an engineer at Australian standards. This is frustrating for assessors and migration agents alike, and so I want to raise this issue. True that these companies have spread as swarms and it will be very idealistic to stop them, but what the assessing authority can do is to warn applicants of penalties for such deception. Every Australian assessing body expects the applicant to be reliable, have good written communication, have values and ethics and by employing “ghost-writers”, applicants take the first step towards compromising these basic attributes and requirements. On this note, I would like to invite our members, who have had the chance of working with successful engineer applicants, to share their experiences on what makes a promising CDR as a guide for our readers. Thank you!