Visa Extension - How to get it.

SA Migration |  06 Dec 2022

How soon can I apply for a visa extension?

As mentioned earlier, you may apply for a renewal 60 days before the expiry date if you received 90 days on your current visa and 7 days if you received 30 days or less. All temporary residence applications must be submitted 60 days before the time and no late application will be accepted.

The visit/tourist visa can only be renewed once per visit. If you are not sure whether you can renew your visa please speak to one of our consultants and we will gladly assess your situation.

How long does a visa extension take?

Home Affairs mentions that processing times are as follows:

1. Tourist visa – 16 weeks or less
2. Temporary residence visa applications for business and general work visas will be finalized within 40 weeks or less.
3. Temporary residence visa applications for critical work visa -40 weeks
4. All other TRP applications, renewals, changes of conditions and extensions will take 180 days.

The processing times have been impacted by Covid-19 and therefore applicants can expect 8 – 12 month delays if not longer. We would advise applicants to persistently follow up with Home Affairs until they receive their outcome.

Whilst awaiting the outcome of your visa, we advise that you do not leave the country as you will be declared undesirable and banned from the country.

South Africa visa extension fee

DHA Fee – R 425.00

Can I apply for a visa extension after expiry?

SA Migration | 06 Dec 2022

No, you may not apply for a renewal after it has expired. This means that you would be illegal in the country and declared an undesirable person when exiting the country. You must ensure that you apply for a renewal in advance before your visa expires as set out in the regulations.

The only applicants exempt from applying for a renewal after their visas have expired are foreign nationals whose visas have expired during the lockdown. These applicants have up to the 30th of September to renew their visas or else they would be declared undesirable.

If you apply for a renewal with an expired visa, officials from VFS will refuse to accept your application.

If you are in the country with an expired visa, the best option is to leave the country and upon exit, you will receive a letter stating that you are banned from South Africa for 12 months or 5 years depending on how long you overstayed. Once you received your letter, you may appeal the decision to lift the ban.

To appeal the decision, the applicant must submit the following documents to the overstay appeals department:

1. Written Representation
2. A copy of the declaration of undesirability (form 19) that was issued at the port of entry.
3. Copy of the relevant pages of the passport, including the bio page.
4. Acknowledgement of receipt (In cases where the applicant applied for a permit and the visa is still pending)
5. If the applicant overstayed due to medical reasons, then a medical certificate must be submitted.

Once you have all the necessary documents, then your appeal application must be emailed to overstayappeals@dha.gov.za and you can contact the IMS deportations department at 012-406 4985 to confirm if your application has been received.

For more information, Please contact us on :

Tel No landline CT  :  +27 (0) 21 879 5560

Tel No landline JHB : +27 (0) 12 880 1490

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Email:info@samigration.com

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What is ChatGPT: The new AI chatbot that can code, compose music, write essays, and more

Business Insider | 06 Dec 2022

• ChatGPT is a new chatbot that answers questions in a conversational, human-like way.
• People shared conversations with ChatGPT, showing it writing social media posts and explaining code.
• It reached over one million users in five days — but has its limitations.

A new artificial intelligence chatbot called ChatGPT is answering questions and taking instructions from users in a conversational, human-like way. OpenAI — the company that's also behind AI-art generator Dall-E — launched an early demo of ChatGPT last week and amassed over 1 million users in five days, according to Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. ChatGPT is not only conversational, but well-versed in a large range of topics. It can create code, social media posts, and even scripts for television shows.

In its blog post about the launch of ChatGPT, OpenAI said its "dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests." The AI language model "is a sibling" to InstructGPT, a model that also responds in detail to a user's instructions, and a newer version of  GPT-3.5, AI that predicts what words will come next after a user starts typing text. ChatGPT was trained with "Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback," according to OpenAI's website.  "We trained an initial model using supervised fine-tuning: human AI trainers provided conversations in which they played both sides—the user and an AI assistant," the website says.

The human trainers would rank and rate the chatbot responses, then feed those ratings back to the chatbot so it could learn what kind of responses were wanted. The company is now depending on user feedback to improve the technology.

Altman responded to Piantadosi on Twitter, telling him to "hit the thumbs down on these and help us improve!". The OpenAI CEO asked Twitter users what features and improvements they want to see with ChatGPT, then responded that the company would work on "a lot of this" before Christmas. "Language interfaces are going to be a big deal," he said on Twitter. "Talk to the computer (voice or text) and get what you want, for increasingly complex definitions of "want"! this is an early demo of what's possible (still a lot of limitations — it's very much a research release)."

www.samigration.com

Visa Extension South Africa

SA Migration |  06 Dec 2022

What is a visa extension?

A SA visa extension is an application to renew your existing visa to extend your stay in South Africa. The visa extension is an entirely new application. Applicants must get the necessary paperwork to submit to VFS who collects the visa applications on behalf of the Department of Home Affairs. A submission for a visa renewal does not mean that you will automatically receive an extension as the Department of Home Affairs will decide to either approve or reject your visa. If your visa has been rejected then you need to follow the visa appeal process South Africa.

Not all visas can be renewed or extended and in this particular scenario, the applicant must leave the country before their visa expires or you might receive a penalty for overstaying in South Africa on an expired visa.

The visas that may not be extended:

• Corporate Workers Visa.
• Tourists visas with a condition not being allowed to extend.

Depending on your visa and the conditions attached, you may or may not be allowed to extend it. Temporary residence visas, on the other hand, can be extended and no limit is applied to the number of times you can apply for a renewal.

www.samigration.com

Visa Appeal Process South Africa

SA Migration | 05 Dec 2022

It is incredibly heartbreaking to know that your application for a visa has been rejected by the Department of Home Affairs and not to imagine the anxiety you must be feeling at this point.

We understand all the effort you have dedicated towards this and now you need to deal with the rejection. It could feel like your dreams are crushed, but not to worry.

Today we are discussing the ins and outs of a refused visa and what you can do about it.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let us discuss something you should know before appealing.

What you need to know:

• What you need to know:

• South Africa visa rejection reasons

• How to appeal for a visa refusal in South Africa

o We recommend the following steps:

 Step 1: Read the refusal letter

 Step 2: Check your documents for any errors

 Things you need to check for:

 Step 3: Writing a refusal letter:

• What documents are required for a visa appeal?

• VFS Appeal Fee South Africa

o Submitting Abroad:

 Fees for an appeal:

• VFS appeal processing time

According to the immigration regulation sections 8(4) and 8(6), an applicant can appeal a rejected visa application.

The applicant has 2 chances to appeal, where the first appeal is sent to the Director General of Home Affairs and the second appeal is directly sent to the Minister of Home Affairs.

The applicant has 10 working days (weekends not included) to appeal the outcome and this regulation counts locally in South Africa including abroad at a South African embassy.

South Africa visa rejection reasons

 There are many reasons why visas or permits are rejected but we will list here whatever springs to mind:

• The applicant does not qualify for the visa being applied for

• Omitted documents from the visa application

• Submitting with a fake existing visa

• The Department of Home Affairs incorrectly adjudicated the visa and misinterpreted the immigration act

• Did not satisfy all the requirements

• Submitting expired time-sensitive documents

• Submitting an application in SA on a visit visa

• Criminal record

• Mental or serious illness

These are just some of the reasons we could think of but there are many reasons why applicants’ visas could be rejected.

How to appeal for a visa refusal in South Africa

The first thing you would need to do is collect your outcome from VFS at the centre you initially submitted it.

At this point, you won’t know what the outcome of your is at this point.

Once you have received the outcome, you would have 10 days to submit the appeal.

We understand at this point you would be freaking out and feeling disappointed.

The relatives visa South Africa processing time can take about 5 months to process and a normal temporary residence visa could also take about 5 months.

We recommend the following steps:

Step 1: Read the refusal letter

You need to thoroughly read through the refusal letter to find out why your application has been refused. The Department of Home Affairs would cite the reason why your visa or permit application has been rejected and mention the 10-day time frame.

We recommend that you obtain or satisfy the reason why your visa or permit has been rejected.

Once you have completed this, we would advise you to navigate to the VFS website and print the list of requirements for the visa you are applying for.

Once you have the list, double-check your application against the list to see that you have all the required documents.

Step 2: Check your documents for any errors

The next thing you need to do is check every document for any errors.

Things you need to check for:

1. All your information is consistent throughout the application like names, surnames, passport numbers etc.

2. Ensure that all your documents are still valid and not expired medical, and radiology are not older than 6 months and certified documents are not older than 3 months.

3. Ensure that all documents are certified or notarised by a notary or commissioner of oaths.

4. All foreign qualifications must be accompanied by a SAQA certificate.

5. All letters and 3rd party letters are in the format that Home Affairs requires them to be.

6. Ensure that all 3rd party processes are complete and include proof thereof when applying for work visas.

Checking your entire visa application allows you to eliminate any errors which might lead to rejection again. So we want to eliminate any possible causes further down the line as we are only allowed to submit 2 appeals and wasting them would be detrimental to you.

If you do not qualify for the visa or permit you are applying for, then there is no way you can appeal it. You must seek an alternative visa which you qualify for and apply for it.

Submitting an application with a fake visa or you have overstayed your visa, then you must first rectify this by submitting an appeal for that and once this has been cleared from your name then only can you go ahead and apply for the visa.

Step 3: Writing a refusal letter:

You will need to write and sign your representation/motivation appeal letter which must include information that will assist the Director General or Minister in making a fair decision.

Your letter must contain the following:

• Address to the Department of Home Affairs Pretoria (Head Office)

• Date

• Addressed to the Director General or Minister

• Cite your response

• include signature

• Thank the Department

What documents are required for a visa appeal?

 You can only appeal once you have collected the outcome of the refusal.

The following documents must be submitted:

• Completed VFS Online Form

• Have original documents on hand for verification while submitting photocopies for any visa/permit

• Valid passport

• Copy of the rejection letter from the Department of Home Affairs

• Copy of your passport and copy of your latest visa/permit that was issued to you

• Your written signed representation/motivation for an appeal in response to the rejection letter which includes any information that would assist the Director General or Minister to make an informed decision when considering your appeal.

• Supporting documents that you wish to include.

• Proof of the VFS funds paid.

VFS Appeal Fee South Africa

Once you are complete with your application and happy that it is 100%, the next step is scheduling your appointment with VFS to submit your appeal for processing.

Protip: If there are no appointments available within the 10-day mark, we suggest you go to VFS and insist that you want to submit.

VFS will not accept your appeal after the 10-day mark, they will simply refuse to assist you.

If there are appointments within the 10 days, we recommend that you book a slot and then submit your application.

Submitting Abroad:

Submitting a refusal appeal abroad works slightly different. If the South African embassy is not contracted to VFS then you would need to find out how they prefer submission for appeals.

Some South African embassies would request form 49 to be accompanied with your application.

Fees for an appeal:

VFS Fees – R 1550.00

Home Affairs – No fees

Remember to include your receipt within your application.

VFS appeal processing time

Your appeal could take anything between 5 months to nearly 2 years.

We advise that after 1 month of waiting, you follow up with them by consistently emailing them every week.

For example the relative visa South Africa processing time takes about 5 to 8 months because of Covid 19.

Once a week is enough as you do not want to irritate them. Set a reminder to mail them every Monday and include the following details in your email:

• You reference number (Include a scanned copy)

• Name & Surname

• Type of application

• When you submitted

Do this every week and you are sure to receive a reply from them. The most important thing is you need to be consistent. Even if there is no reply, you need to be consistent.

Contact us today to assist you with your immigration needs. We have years of experience working on overturning a refusal and we can give you the best advice for your situation. Refused applications do not need to be complex and let us take the stress out of the application for you this refusal will be a walk in the park for you,

Temporary residence refusal and permanent residence refusal are what we specialize in. Contact us today for our refusal service

How can we help you , please email us to info@samigration.com whatsapp message me on: 

 +27 82 373 8415, where are you now? check our website : www.samigration.com