Sonographer Yvette du Plessis-Uys moved to New Zealand with her husband and two children from South Africa two years ago.
Du Plessis-Uys came here under the essential skills visa and her family lodged their expression of interest application in May last year.
But the expression of interest pool, the first stage of the residency application process, has been paused for more than a year, albeit collecting more than $5 million?from fees, and her future in New Zealand is looking more uncertain by the day.
※Last year when everything was rocky, I felt I was doing my part seeing patients in lockdown in the &team of five million’. But that sentiment feels jaded now because I exclude myself from that team,§?Du Plessis-Uys says.
※I’m valuable enough to work in healthcare, but not valuable enough to be a resident.§
Du Plessis-Uys, along with hundreds of other migrants, has?been waiting for months for an update from Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi about reopening the pool.
But the minister has?given no indication of this other than that it would be ※soon§.
If the pool were?open, her application would have been processed under priority and she may already have become a resident by?now.
To work through the large backlog of applications, officials have been processing residency applications under priority and non-priority categories.?
Priority applicants are those who earn more than twice the median wage - $54 an hour or $112,320 a year - or work in an occupation where registration is required.
And as a radiologist technician, she had to be registered with the medical radiation board.
The residence application wait for priority applicants was two weeks, but more than a year for non-priority applicants, with officials currently processing applications from November 2019.?
※I’m valuable enough to work in healthcare, but not valuable enough to be a resident.§
- Yvette du Plessis-Uys, skilled migrant
Supermarket worker Thao Joy got through the first hurdle, the expression of interest pool, but has spent 19 months waiting in the residency queue because?her application is considered non-priority.
Joy migrated from Vietnam with her husband and their son in 2018 as a student.?
Her husband is a web designer and she works at a small grocer in Napier.?
Joy says?working in lockdown as an essential worker with customers refusing to wear masks and hurling racist abuse towards her was hard enough, now the uncertainty of her residency status was adding more stress.
※We migrants are not burdens to this country. We are contributing to the country # but are treated like, even less than second class citizens.§
She is also concerned about her application facing further delays as immigration?staff have been unable to process residency applications?during the Level 4 lockdown.
As of August 16 there were 11,500 onshore residency applications waiting to be processed. This is after 50,000 offshore applications were cancelled and refunded earlier in July.
Both Joy and?Du Plessis-Uys say they are actively looking to move to other countries, Canada and Australia, respectively.?
Du Plessis-Uys says she feels ※hopeless and frustrated§ and let down by the Government’s lack of clarity on the expression of interest pool.?
※We just want the minister to say something. If he doesn’t want any migrants, say that, then we can look elsewhere. Don’t announce a reset and then extend the visas of people you don’t want.?
※I’m tired of hearing &soon’. What is soon to the minister? They are just dragging people along.§
She says if there was clearer messaging, migrants could plan rather than waiting for years, in some cases, to hear about whether their applications will be accepted or not.
※New Zealanders have been relying on us right through the previous lockdown and now this one,§?Du Plessis-Uys says.
※And it’s like a slap in the face to be told &Oh, well, you know, you worked, you paid your taxes. Okay, goodbye’.§
After pressure from businesses facing labour shortages,?in April the Government extended all working holiday and supplementary seasonal visas due to expire between June 21 and December 31 by six months. This impacted some 10,000 visa holders.?
Supplementary seasonal visa holders were also given open work rights, allowing them to work in any sector.?
Faafoi also signalled around this time the Government would continue to monitor the border and labour market situations to extend these visas again if necessary.
A spokesman for Faafoi’s office said the Government remains committed to that and any decisions around extending those visas again will be made closer to December when the first lot of visas are due to expire.
※People deserve to be told what the hell’s going on.§
?- Tuariki Delamere, immigration advisor
Immigration adviser and former immigration minister Tuariki Delamere says he’s concerned by Faafoi’s inaction on issues such as split migrant families and long processing backlogs. ※I’ve known Kris for 25 years. He’s a lovely person. But frankly, as far as immigration concerns, you know, he’s a fish out of water.§
He says the immigration issues precede Covid, but the pandemic has been used as an ※excuse§ to delay decisions such as addressing the threshold of how many residency applications are approved.
※People deserve to be told what the hell’s going on.§
Immigration NZ is resourced in line with the Government’s New Zealand Residence Programme, which expired on December 31, 2019. While the agency waits for the Government to make a decision on the new quota, it has been processing applications at the same volume and with the same level of resourcing.?
The programme ran for 18 months from July 1, 2018 until December 31, 2019 and included a planning range of 50,000 to 60,000 approvals for residency.
This threshold hasn’t been changed since.
Last year, based on the rate of successful appeals to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal, INZ made mistakes in more than 40 percent of the residence applications it decided, Delamere says.
※This rate of successful appeals is phenomenal. I mean, can you imagine if the criminal courts were wrong 40 percent of the time in convicting people of crimes? It would be a mess. There would be public outcry. But New Zealand does not give a s***?about migrants by and large.§