Please do not ask me for immigration advice.
Because it is illegal for me to give it, despite the bags of experience I now have in dealing with Immigration matters and dealing with INZ when things go wrong.
I have confirmation from the IAA that even giving my own personal experience is deemed to be “advising”, and any migrant who does so is breaking the law. It doesn’t matter if you are just having a chat with someone who is also a migrant, or intending to become one: you are NOT allowed to answer any questions about the immigration process. Whether you charge or not is irrelevant, and whether you do so on a blog, or as a member of a forum, or at a get-together for other migrants – you will still be breaking the law.
What a complete balls-up!
Was this seriously the intention behind the founding of the IAA??? Was the intention to shut everyone up who has less than stellar things to say about the immigration process or the politics behind it? Was the intention to force migrants to plow money into the pockets of New Zealand based Immigration “agents”?
If the intention was genuinely to help protect migrants from unscrupulous agents – it hasn’t. Migrants are now, more than ever, at the mercy of agents who still may not have a clue about what they are doing, and at the mercy of incompeteant and bullying INZ staff, many of whome haven’t got the faintest idea of thier own rules and regulations. Why for example has not one licensed agent ever noticed the lack of official complaints process? Why are agents still getting people completely inappropriate visas? Why is my local MP allowed to give out completely misleading ”advice” to migrants and not be licenced?
Now, the Skilled Migrants Centre in Christchurch as to close its doors under threat of legal action. It should only be a matter of time before the forums are shut down as well (incidentally – the forum owners are not breaking the law – but members who answer any questions about immigration matters are – typical!).
And the worse thing? Because I am not an Agent, I may never be able to register under this silly scheme. The scheme is set up to licence AGENTS, not migrants who wish to share their hard won experience with others.
This bodes very ill for people who wish to emigrate to New Zealand, and as far as I’m concerned, New Zealand Immigration has just ended up looking utterly stupid because of this.
I can and will continue to blog about INZ and it’s rules, as this is clearly not advice. But what this handling of the law means is that you will not be able to contact me directly and ask me for specific information or guidance relating to your personal situation. If however you do need to understand what the guff from Immigration New Zealand means and where to find it – that I can help with, and will publish it publicly on the blog.
Like I said – what a balls up!
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Comments
3 Comments on Please do not ask me for immigration advice.
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Hubby on
Fri, 17th Jul 2009 9:55 pm
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Please do not ask me for immigration advice. | Avalon's Blog « Immigration on
Sat, 18th Jul 2009 1:22 am
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Hubby on
Sat, 18th Jul 2009 11:04 pm
HUmpfhh!!
I feel a vexacious adherence to the rules coming on. Watch this space.
[...] Read more: Please do not ask me for immigrati… [...]
Sad but true – I’ve now read the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007.
It’s not as interesting as it sounds.
Blog post to follow!
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