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Auckland, December 13, 2017
For many New Zealand families of former Indian students who were encouraged to study here with promises of work and residency, this Christmas will be bleak.
Some of the fathers’ applications from India for residency, which would enable them to return to New Zealand to rejoin their wives and families, have been turned down by Immigration New Zealand (INZ).
The reasons given indicate that the applications of other fathers will also be turned down.
The punitive actions taken by immigration officers on former Indian students who formed genuine relationships with local women – may potentially lead to dozens of New Zealand-born children being separated from their fathers.
Unrealistic hopes raised
The previous government and unlicensed Indian education agents enticed students to study in New Zealand with unrealistic hopes of work and pathways to residency.
When they failed to gain the skilled jobs and residency that the offshore agents had promised would be forthcoming, many of these students became overstayers in order to support their new families.
Auckland immigration law specialist Alastair McClymont represents many former international students who have found themselves in this predicament.
His clients include kohanga reo teacher Nikki Akenehi Harawira, who will be meeting with Tamati Coffey, Labour MP for Waiariki, December 18, 2017, supported by her Te Arawa whanau, to request his help to be reunited with her partner Palwinder and their 16-month-old baby boy.
Genuine application denied
Palwinder’s resident visa application was declined and he has been banned from New Zealand for five years. He required a Special Direction (required for anyone deported from New Zealand) from INZ, which was not granted. This was despite Immigration officials visiting the couple’s home before he departed from New Zealand and verifying that they were a genuine couple who had the support of the wider family.
“For many years we have advised clients in these situations to depart New Zealand voluntarily, to return to their home country and to reapply for residence visas from offshore. These resident visa applications were invariably successful, and the applicant was then able to re-join his or her family in New Zealand within six months as a resident,” Mr McClymont said.
INZ heartless
However, INZ now seems to have had a change of heart.
“Resident visa applications are now being declined even when INZ accepts that the relationships are genuine and that there are young New Zealand citizen children who need their fathers – simply because INZ wants to punish the applicants for overstaying, often if it has been for less than two years.
“Almost all these men are without any character or health issues and are in recognised genuine, stable relationships,” Mr McClymont said.
What the Law says
The Immigration Act requires the Minister of Immigration to make a decision on ex-overstayers to enable the applicants to be approved for residency.
This responsibility has been delegated to immigration managers, but their approach and decisions have changed.
It would now seem that punishing applicants for overstaying is of greater priority than enabling families in New Zealand to be able to rely on husbands and fathers being present to care and provide for them.
The social impacts of such an approach seem to be considered unimportant.
“INZ wants overstayers to contact them to arrange for a voluntary departure and this is what happens. But if INZ wants overstayers to depart voluntarily, why create obstacles that will prevent this from happening? In the past we have advised our overstayer clients in this situation to leave voluntarily. In all conscience, we can now no longer do so, because we know that they will likely be denied the opportunity to rejoin their families,” Mr McClymont said.
Labour’s priority
The new Labour Government has stated its priority to ensure that fewer children grow up in welfare-dependent households, yet their own government officials at INZ seem to have been operating under the belief that the previous minister would let them do as they saw fit. This approach is actively breaking families apart, depriving young children of their fathers and leaving families separated and potentially dependent on the social welfare system to survive.
It is not just the men who are being punished, it is also their Kiwi families.
Rights of children
“Their children are innocent. Why aren’t their rights being taken into account? The rights of the child should be paramount – the right to grow up in a family with both parents in the country of their birth.
“I challenge Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway to explain why their officials are demonstrating so little concern for the welfare and wellbeing of this group of young Kiwi children – and what they intend to do about it. “They need to reign in their officials who do not seem to have received the ‘we care about Kiwi kids’ memo’.”
Many students who fail in their attempts to gain work or residency rights in New Zealand become overstayers and survive by working in horticultural jobs in the regions.
Cultural affinity
“They often meet, fall in love and start families with Kiwi women, many of whom are from Maori or Pacific backgrounds, because they tend to feel a cultural affinity with them. These women often encourage their partners to depart the country voluntarily and to apply for residency from abroad. Their husbands have done the right thing and departed, but now these women are now left with no partner and their kids without a father. Having a stable, positive, hard-working father figure in the home is probably the single strongest influence on a young child’s life. It often enables the family to break the welfare dependency cycle,” Mr McClymont said.
He said that there could well be hundreds of young children of former international students waking up on Christmas morning without their fathers, without money to buy presents to put under the tree and wondering why they can only speak to their dads by Skype from the other side of the world.
Alastair McClymont is an Auckland-based Immigration Law Specialist. He has been associated with Indian Newslink since this newspaper was launched on November 15, 1999. He is known for his empathy towards international students from India and takes up their cases on pro bono basis. Read his Open Letter to the Labour Government in Indian Newslink, December 15 issue.
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