Family Saga

Background: Why am I writing this?

We arrived in New Zealand as new residents on the 31st December 2004 after deciding 2 years earlier to emigrate. It took us 2 years to get a job offer for my Hubby, and our Visas, partly because while we were doing our research, Immigration New Zealand (INZ or NZIS) changed the whole process and we had a long delay.

Part of our plan was always that we would try and migrate the whole family: my parents and brother. I am such a homebody and close to my family – so the thought of moving without them was just too much. And thankfully they were fully on board and eager to move anyway.

Hubby and I had visited New Zealand in 2002 for our Honeymoon, and we brought the family over in October 2003 to make sure they liked it. At the same time, they all applied for a Long Term Business Visas to try and move their UK business out to New Zealand. This was declined in July 2004 – which meant that their only hope of emigrating here was via the Family Sponsorship route.

As an aside – at the time about 95% of all LTBV were being approved but there was a huge backlog and it apparently became a wee bit embarrasing. All of a sudden, and practically overnight, about 95% off all the applications waiting were denied. My Parents among them. Funnily enough – this seems to co-incide with Mary Ann Thompson taking over as head of immigration. I’ve no idea if there is a connection but is is one of the “things that make you go Hmmmm!”.

We had to wait 3 years from the day we arrived as Residents before we could put my parents application in, and then once theirs was approved – we would be able to sponsor my brother.

We knew that Parent Sponsorship applications were way down the priority list – so were expecting some delays, until we found out that one applicant had a visa within 11 weeks of applying. We also knew that it was likely that my dad’s application would be reviewed by a Medical Assessor as he had diabetes.

What we were not prepared for was watching other Parents get through the system so much quicker, despite having some serious health issues. We were not prepared for a medical assessor that refused to give us any details of what he wanted to know other than “more tests” and blatantly ignored the results that said my dad was in excellent health, and a case officer who refused to help us. And we certainly were not prepared for the abuse and arrogance we received from so many of the people we went to for help.

Because Immigration New Zealand did not take these matters as seriously as they should have – we are writing about what happened and what we were put through. Immigration New Zealand have not disciplined the staff who were at fault, and they are still able to act exactly the same way to other migrants. We know other people are facing the same problems with the same branch.

Names will be altered to protect the people involved from further embarrassment (if indeed they feel any embarrassment) – except for the public figures whose names are known already (such as the head of Immigration).

My hope is that this gives a glimmer of hope to other migrants faced with belligerent and unhelpful immigration staff and do not know where to turn for help.