Immigrant youth trapped without the ability to work or study have been promised a resolution, as Immigration NZ continues working through thousands of cases.
Minister Kris Faafoi is expected to make a decision on the work and study rights of dependent youth waiting in residency visa queues, but affected migrants are losing hope.
Over the past few months, stories of migrants like Kayleigh Roffe have made national headlines.
Roffe, 22, who spoke with Newsroom earlier this year, has not been able to work or study for the past four years because of changed goalposts coupled with delays in processing her parents’ residency applications.
The wait times for residency visa applications have always been unpredictable and long, but since 2018 it seems processing times have drastically increased, taking up to two years.
Under immigration rules, applicants younger than 24 years who are single, don’t have any children of their own and rely on an adult for financial support can be considered “dependent children”.
The rules also don’t permit Kayleigh, nor her sister Chevaunne, to work in New Zealand or study without paying international fees. Advice received from immigration advisors, and immigration call centres is to not volunteer or intern either.
“I can’t apply for residency as an individual because I don’t have any work experience or money,” Roffe said. “My application wouldn’t be successful even if I tried.”
The family has spent more than $34,000 on their residency applications.
When Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi was asked about the status of dependants’ work and study rights while during the long processing time, he said: “Residence visa approval is not a guarantee and families and young adults should factor the wait time for visa decisions into their decision making when applying.”
However, since then, the dozens of migrants in a similar position as Roffe emailing him about their plight has led to the Minister reviewing advice from the immigration department.
Faafoi was not available for an interview. “The Minister is aware of the impact Skilled Migrant Category and Residence from Work processing times are having on some families who have a dependent child or children close to reaching, or who have already reached the age of 18,” a spokesperson said.
“Immigration NZ has provided some options on how they might manage applications from families in this situation and the Minister is looking at those options and will provide feedback to Immigration NZ shortly.”
Immigration NZ did not share the advice it had given Faafoi.
The department’s general manager of border and visa Nicola Hogg said Immigration NZ understood the families’ concerns. “The Minister is looking at those options and will provide feedback to Immigration NZ shortly. Any decisions will be public once they have been made.”
Roffe isn’t holding her breath.
She received an email from Minister Faafoi four months ago outlining that he was working through advice.
“I’m just over the fact that he’s made promises that he’ll get back to us with a solution and nothing’s ended up coming back,” Roffe says. “The previous big announcement he had wasn’t anything new.”
That announcement was the immigration reset, which Minister Stuart Nash made on Faafoi’s behalf, about New Zealand’s shift to attracting “high skilled” workers.
Since then a number of high skilled migrant workers, including doctors and nurses, have left for better residency prospects in other countries.
Roffe’s message to the Minister is: “Stop figuring out the reset and try figure out what you’re going to do about people already in the country.”
“Try and keep those of us in the country already rather than trying to get newer highly skilled workers.”
Roffe’s father, for instance, is the only person in the country that can use a specialised accounting software.
But the family has been waiting in the residency queue for four years with no end in sight.
Immigration NZ’s latest residency application processing timeframe shows as of July 19, officials were processing Skilled Migrant Category and Residence from Work visas received from October 29, 2019.
High priority applicants earning $54 or NZ$112,320 a year within 2 weeks of the application joining the priority queue.
Immigration NZ system failures
Immigration NZ has already received significant scrutiny in recent months for splitting families, putting thousands of residency applications on ice and announcing plans to turn off the tap on immigration. The department’s handling of visa processes has led to numerous complaints from migrants to the Ombudsman.
Last year immigration advisor Erin Goodhue found some of her clients from the same country of citizenship applying around the same time had vastly different results. Some were receiving their applications within weeks, while others were waiting years.
Goodhue says Immigration NZ only addressed the criteria once migrants filed complaints to the government watchdog. The chief ombudsman told Immigration New Zealand to apologise for an unofficial policy of prioritising highly-paid residence applicants to jump the queue.
“I’m just over the fact that he’s made promises that he’ll get back to us with a solution and nothing’s ended up coming back.”
– Kayleigh Roffe
Between July 2018 and February 23, 2020 informal rules, not communicated publicly, prioritised skilled migrants earning a salary of $106,080. This threshold has since increased to $112,320 a year.
The Office of the Ombudsman later found Immigration NZ officials also failed to follow the department’s own advice in extending post-study work visas.
Officials issued international students shorter post-study work visas than they were eligible for.
And last week Newsroom revealed processing flaws within Immigration NZ’s resident deportation system had caused huge backlogs, resulting in convicted criminals living in the country for longer than they typically would. Consultant PwC, which audited Immigration NZ’s systems, said the situation posed a “significant reputational risk” to the department and minister.
Immigration Minister under fire
Earlier this month Minister Faafoi cancelled 50,000 temporary offshore visa applications offering those migrants, many of whom are family members of New Zealand citizens, and offered refunds.
An Auckland man separated from his husband, who is a Chinese citizen, filed a lawsuit against Faafoi for two recent decisions relating to the suspension of processing offshore temporary visa applications and the decision to cancel and refund 50,000 temporary offshore visa applications, some of which were already being processed.
Immigration NZ determined the applicant, University of Auckland science professor Michael Witbrock, and his partner were in a genuine and stable relationship, but due to the suspension on issuing such visas he has not yet been granted a visa nor been given a border exemption.
The couple has been apart since January 2020, and Witbrock’s lawyers allege the Minister failed to properly consider the obligations international conventions and discriminated on the basis of race, religion, sex and sexual orientation as these social groups do not always permit partners to live together depending on which country they are based.
Witbrock’s lawyers claim there was also no path provided by China which enabled the couple to live together as a same-sex couple, and it would be significantly more difficult for them to do so given the lower recognition of same-sex relationships in China compared with New Zealand.
Faafoi did not comment on the matter as it was before the courts.
Newly-minted permanent resident Anna Burghardt started the Facebook page Migrants NZ a couple of years ago during her 20-month-long wait in the residency queue.
Burghardt says she created the page because she was “extremely frustrated” by Immigration NZ’s handling of residency applications. And it’s a feeling shared by many of her page’s followers.
“I think the sentiment overall on the page is that they’re happy about the professor taking legal action,” Burghardt says. “Michael has stepped up, but the issue is not just about him. He is representing thousands of other families who have been split up.”
Burghardt says while she too is skeptical about Faafoi’s potential decision to grant dependent youth the rights to work and study while waiting for their applications to process, the Government can no longer ignore migrants’ calls.
“Every time we hear a decision will be made soon. What is soon? It’s like his responses are just to fob us off.
“The country was captivated by the baby orca washed up on our but the public cares less about families that have moved to New Zealand for a better future, or because they were invited here being treated like garbage.”
