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I am Iraqi passport holder living currently in Iraq with no valid Australian visa. I received an invitation to lodge my 189 visa and I am in process of lodging my PR visa. While I was studying in Australia 2012-August 2017 (completed and returned back to Iraq), I had a Schengen Visa refusal in March 2017 to Italy as I was going for a conference.

I did something wrong during the Italian visa process. The thing I did was I withdrew my passport from the Italian embassy (between the time of lodging my visa application to the refusal date). I withdrew passport because I had to travel to USA for another conference and the embassy did not issue visa as quick as usual. While I was in USA, I received an email by Italian embassy stating:
"One or more member state(s) consider you to be a threat to public policy, internal security, public health as defined in Article 2(19) of Regulation (EG) No 562/2006 (Schengen Borders Code) or the international relations of one or more of the member of states". Within this received email, they give me a chance to explain everything. I did and said that I withdrew my passport for this reason with a lot of supportive documents.

After returning to Australia, I sent back my passport and they sent me this refusal with the same reason quoted above. I am very confident that I do no have anything to hide.

I checked this https://accra.diplo.de/blob/1120620/1c3be7eadcc793be49d586d77787604c/schengen-visa-refusal-data.pdf. I want to local German consulate and sought AZR. I received that "no details are stored under your name". So, the only possibilities, they considered when making decision for my schengen visa, are deceit or false/fake/contradictory.

Q1: How is to mention the above refusal reason in "circumstances of refusal" this form https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/form-listing/forms/80.pdf?

Q2: How severe is this refusal on the likelihood of getting my Australian PR visa approved?

Q3: What is the best approach to handle this?

Thanks in Advance

Traveller
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user109341
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1 Answers1

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A refusal for being a security threat is a Bad Thing™. You'll have to enlist the help of a competent lawyer specializing in these matters if you ever want to enter the Schengen area again. See the linked question for more details on this.

Now, in theory, Australia is free to make its own determination as to whether you're a risk or not, so you could still be granted the visa anyway.

However, you absolutely have to mention this refusal on your Australian application, and provide a complete and bullet-proof explanation of why exactly Schengen doesn't want you in. I personally don't see anything close to such a credible explanation in your question, but then I'm not an Australian visa officer.

Thus although there's nothing stopping you from applying anyway, I'd consider the risk of a refusal to be pretty high. I suspect you'll have to sort out the Schengen issue first.

TooTea
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