The 2 year family sponsorship wait.
Finally – the fact that INZ are screwing thousands of people out of a $700 “application fee” and then sitting on their backsides for 2 years has made the news in New Zealand. The Herald’s Lincoln Tan has now written about this situation which is causing so much stress and grief for so many of us.
“Immigration New Zealand gets $700 for every application and 4000 applicants means it has received $2.8 million in advance payment for doing absolutely nothing and that’s a breach of trust,”
That’s a staggering amount of money sitting in INZ accounts when they are doing bugger all about it. I think this says it all really.
A family member of a 74-year-old applicant who has been told that she has to return to Fiji to wait for a case manager to be assigned, says it has resulted in “extreme stress” for the grandmother.
Whoever has “advised” this applicant I hope they have told her to apply for an exception to policy to be allowed to stay. There are thousands of people who get to stay in New Zealand on Visitor permits longer than 9 months – I don’t see why our families can’t be amongst them.
“Two years is a long time for a woman her age, and she is extremely worried about who is going to care for her during that time because she has no one to return to in Fiji,” said the woman, who did not want to be named for fear of jeopardising the woman’s application.
Yep – know that fear. It’s not a good time to be an immigrant here in New Zealand if you have to speak out about something. I’m terrified that my brother is going to be made to pay for the fact that I am trying to get the IALA changed. The immigartion minister shoudl really be ashamed that people feel this way about living here.
Lesley Haines, acting head of Immigration New Zealand says:
“Demand in the family-capped stream considerably exceeds annual supply of spaces, so applications are queued until places became available.”
This is total and utter bollocks. The queue is simply because the staff at INZ have been told to hold back applications until they get to the head of a “queue” in applications. It has absolutely nothing to do with the number of spaces available. The number of spaces is renewed each year. Are INZ suggesting that we should go an kill a couple of NZers to free us some space for our families.???
But a spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman said the minister did not find the waiting time unreasonable.
Well of course he wouldn’t – he’s not the one having to leave his family behind. He’s an MP so he gets thousands of dollars off New Zealanders to make his family life more bearable.
“There is no point allocating an application until places become available,” she said.
“In Australia, waiting times are between 18 months and 10 years on parent application, and for Canada, the processing time is almost three years.”
But – numpty – we don’t live in Australia or Canada – we’re emigrating to NEW ZEALAND. This is truly pathetic and scary that the best excuse the Immigration Ministers office can come up with for the desperate incompetence at INZ is “But Australia does it” (I can here the whine from here.)
And if you really want to see just how much bollocks they are talking – take a look at this from the INZ website under the Fortnightly Selection PDF for the Skilled Migrant Category.
The “year” runs from July to June. One third of the way through the year they have only processed 1141 application (throughout the world) for family sponsorship, and so far 1816 people have been accepted. That leaves about 3200 spaces left. Now it’s fair to say that they are actually accepting most applications (895 accepted vs 246 declined) but call me thick – I’m failing to see where the lack of spaces comes from!
While it’s true that there are currently more applications on hand than there are spaces left – it hardly accounts for the supposed 2 year wait.
We have been told on more than one occasion that this always happens – and come the end of the year when INZ haven’t made their numbers then there is a rush to get the rest of the applications through. Suddenly they realise that in fact they miraculously have spaces left. Funny that.
Now – lets compare this years figures with last year:
So basically – this year at the same time – they actually have MORE spaces left than they did last year. And yet it is only this year that they are insisting on making applicants wait for the 2 years BEFORE they assign a case office. Bear in mind that nearly 2 years ago – they said the same thing to my parents – it would be a long wait before a case officer was assigned, and yet one was actually assigned in 2 months. 6 Months prior to that, another applicants parents got accepted inside of 3 months – having being told the exact same pack of lies.
Make no mistake about it – INZ lie through their teeth, and no one wants to take them to task for it. Yes – they now seem to be making Family Applicants wait – but for no sensible reason.
(The figures for previous years don’t help us see what happened because they grouped parent and adult sibling with Partnership and Dependent child application – which have no cap on the numbers)
You know – I get that family sponsorship is not a priority. But the thing is we have proved our worth to New Zealand – and we have earned the right to sponsor our families. It’s as simple as that. That’s why they make us work our arses off for 3 years before they even let us start this process. To then make us wait another two years (which will turn in to 4 years if like us you want to bring a sibling out as well) – its not on. Especially as the real reason is because of systemic mismanagement in INZ – and nothing to do with the number of spaces. Lying about it to cover up incompetence is reprehensible – although it’s a very Kiwi thing to do.
INZ are taking the piss, and the Immigration Minster is letting them get away with it rather than cleaning up their act. I am really disappointed in Mr Coleman’s’ “can’t be bothered” attitude to the problems at INZ.
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Related posts:
- Family Sponsorship: The 2 year wait Update.
- How to sponsor your family into New Zealand Part 2
- How to sponsor your family into New Zealand Part 1
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