Dependent children of migrants will be able to study and work while waiting for residency.
Children of migrants deprived of education and work while their parents’ residency application was being processed, in some cases for four years,?have finally been granted?rights to resume their lives.?
After months of?deliberation over the work and study rights of dependent youth waiting in residency visa queues, Immigration NZ announced those young adults?whose parents have applied for the new one-off 2021 Resident Visa will be able to access tertiary education and work through a new one-off student visa from January 1, 2022.
Dependent children are defined by Immigration NZ as 24 years and younger, who rely on their parents for financial support, have no children of their own and are unmarried.
Immigration NZ?border and visa operations general manager Nicola Hogg says the one-off student visa will give?certainty to migrants?and tertiary providers that they can enrol as domestic tertiary students from next month?rather than after their residence visa has been processed.
Under the new student visa category the dependent tertiary students will be able to?work up to 20 hours a week, she says.
Applicants can qualify by providing evidence that they are enrolled in a full-time study programme, or being aged 18 or older and are included as a dependent in 2021 Resident Visa application.
Hogg says refunds for student visa applications will be considered on a case by case basis.
※Refunds will not be given where a student visa has already been granted and the 2021 Resident Visa is subsequently approved.§
Kayleigh Roffe, 23, and her younger sister Chevaunne are?among?those affected by this decision.
Roffe says she burst into tears when she realised she would have to ※waste another six months§ after being unable to work or study for the past four years.
The one-off student visa will be valid until the dependent youth’s?parent’s?visa expires or December 31, 2023, whichever is sooner. That is if her parents 2021 Resident Visa application is not approved by then.?
With a six week wait for approval of the 2021 Resident Visa,?Roffe won’t be able to start studying in the first semester of 2022 commencing in March as applications close in early January.
※It’s great news to hear. It’s just frustrating that although we’ve had to already apply for a visitor visa?upon visitor visa to be able to stay in the country, we now also have to apply for a student visa to allow us to study and in a variation of conditions to allow us to work. Why don’t they automatically do that? They can see all our customer numbers in their systems.§
※This could have come a whole lot earlier ＃? But let’s take the good part and that is the announcement has finally come.§
- Katy Armstrong, immigration advisor
Roffe plans to work while studying computer and information science at Auckland University of Technology and later accounting.?
But the news has come to late for some?migrants who?have already?paid international fees upfront for their children?to start university in January.
Immigration adviser Katy Armstrong says, while the news was a ※hard-fought win§, it came too late.?
※The weird thing is that we don’t have any immigration instructions around it yet. So as usual, there’s always a gap between something coming out in the news, and then the actual rules,§ Armstrong says.
※This could have come a whole lot earlier. I’ve seen quite a lot of kids who are really at the tail end of what’s reasonable. But let’s take the good part and that is the announcement has finally come.§