QUICK SURVEY QUESTION, Precious Reader.
How long should a migrant worker be working in a host country before he or she can reasonably expect to be given a right to apply for permanent residency, a decent chance to be approved, and eventually be eligible for citizenship in that host country?
Two years? Three ? Five? How about ten? Surely, after a worker has been working a decade in New Zealand, contributing to the growth of its economy and well-being, following its laws and paying taxes, such worker by then would’ve deserved to stay permanently in New Zealand?
Sadly, ten years or more is no assurance that you will be granted, or even have a good chance to apply for permanent residency, no matter what job you’ve had or how long you’ve been doing it in the country which has weathered the covid19 pandemic better than most nations in the world.
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In fact, the presence of many migrant workers on the “front line” of service in New Zealand in the Year of the Virus has not helped their cause: there are now, based on Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) stats, around 30,000 permanent residency applications that have not been resolved for various reasons, but mostly because of Immigration New Zealand (INZ)’s own inefficiency and lack of resources to handle applications.
Thirty thousand cases, some of which had been in a long queue even before the 2020 lockdown started. Even if INZ had a staff of 50 case officers, which would be unlikely, it would give each case officer 600 visa applications to handle. Given the amount of time needed to handle each case (at least nine months to a year), you can imagine how long it will take to settle all these.
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Cruelly denying migrant workers (including many OFWs) a chance to apply for permanent residency was only one of many issues taken up by the Federation of Aotearoa Migrants during its “protest march” for migrants last Saturday in Auckland.
Among the many issues: returning work visa holders stranded in their home countries when the lockdown hit; uniting migrant families separated by the pandemic, granting an “amnesty” to all overstayers and temporary visa holders who’ve stayed in New Zealand for more than a certain number of years; lifting the two-year suspension of the SMC (Skilled Migrant Category) visa pathway that has frozen the hopes and dreams of thousands upon thousands of migrant families, and many other migrant-related issues.
Addressing the issue of denying long-standing work-visa holders residency Migrant Workers Association Anu Kaloti said: “we are asking (Labour Government) to keep these people who have special skills by giving them residency. What is the point of deporting (or sending home) people who we need and then replacing them with another group of people who we are going to exploit?
“Let’s just keep the people who are (already) here.”
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The umbrella organization of migrant workers, the Green Party and the labour unions supporting temporary visa holders have many voices, but are saying the same thing:
There seems to be one practical solution to people who are still here but cannot leave, for people who contribute to the NZ economy but are unjustly deprived of stability in their lives, and those workers who continue to be exploited by employers taking advantage of loopholes in the employer-assisted visa regime, and that is granting permanent residency to all workers who, whether or not caused by covid, are already here in New Zealand.
A just, practical and humane solution. And good for business, too.
Thanks for reading, mabuhay!
