South African family in immigration limbo for more than a year

Tuesday, 3 March 2020

A South African couple have been kept in limbo for more than a year while waiting on a residency application, with no end in sight.

For the past 14 months, JP and Danilla Möller have dealt with delays to their application, which they were told was supposed to have been completed within six months.

So far, they have not even been assigned a case officer to look into their application.

Minister of Immigration Iain Lees-Galloway said he could not comment on individual cases, but said he did not want applicants waiting more than a year for a decision.

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JP Möller said without any certainty regarding their residency, they have been unable to plan for their life in New Zealand.

While they still have work visas, he said they couldn't look into buying a house or starting a family in New Zealand, or sell their depreciating property back in South Africa.

'It's like you're in stasis – you can't make any life decisions.'

The Möllers, originally from Cape Town in South Africa, moved to Nelson in 2017.

JP got a job as an operations manager for a fruit and vegetable supplier, while Danilla was employed by Nelson Hospital.

After falling in love with New Zealand, they decided to look into applying for residency through the Skilled Migrant Expression of Interest form.

With the couple meeting all the requirements for age, employment and qualifications, they were invited to apply for permanent residency by Immigration NZ in December 2018.

JP said they were told the process was expected to take about nine months from start to finish.

He said after contacting the New Zealand Immigration service in June 2019 he was told no case officer had been assigned, with no explanation for the delay.

JP Moeller and Danilla Moeller are looking for answers from Immigration New Zealand, and are being backed by Nelson MP Nick Smith, right.

After further phone calls the deadline continued to be extended, to one year and then 14 months.

Nelson MP Nick Smith took up the Möller's cause after they contacted him in January this year.

Smith said the Möller's plight had highlighted how 'ridiculous' the immigration approval process had become.

Earlier in February, Smith contacted the Minister of Immigration Iain Lees-Galloway to give some urgency to the case and assign the Möllers a case manager.

Associate Minister of Immigration Poto Williams replied to Smith, saying it was not the minister's practice to intervene in cases where alternatives are being pursued through INZ, and a current application was in progress.

Smith said this was a case of the minister 'kicking the issue to touch'.

'The [Associate] Minister is leaving these applicants in a catch 22 situation. She refuses to intervene until the application is processed when the very problem is that it is not being processed.

'My simple request is that a case manager be assigned to processing the Möller's application.'

Smith said the Möllers were just 'the tip of the iceberg', with dozens of similar cases cropping up in Nelson.

He said the root cause of the issue was the due to the Government's 'muddled' immigration policies and promises to reduce immigration numbers. Smith said while thousands of migrants had been encouraged to apply for residency, many had been left in limbo on extended work permits.

'We will never be able to approve every person who wants to live here but we are damaging New Zealand's good reputation by enticing thousands of people here and then not processing their legitimate applications.

'The Government needs to fix the problem of this massive backlog but also get its policy clear so it's not messing people like the Möllers around.'

Lees-Galloway said with more people than ever applying for work visas and residency, the reality was there would be more people waiting for longer.

He said he was concerned about visa processing in general, and expected Immigration New Zealand to be fully focused on improving.

'In terms of residency – these are important decisions and need to be thoroughly checked.

'While other countries take more than 12 months, we don't want that. We want to be efficient while ensuring we manage risk and make careful decisions.'

Immigration New Zealand general manager border and visa operations Nicola Hogg said from 1 July 2018 to 31 December 2019 52,000 residency applications were approved.

Hogg said the Government was currently reviewing its approach to the residency programme, which had been prioritising applications where the principal applicant worked in an occupation requiring registration, was highly paid or had applied under the Residence from Work-Talent (Accredited Employer) category.

Hogg said an increased volume from the prioritised Residence from Work category had created a disproportionate impact on the general queue.

She said changes had been made to allow INZ to start allocating older, non-priority applications on a more consistent basis.