Continuing in our series of Migrant Stories: first hand accounts of migrant life in New Zealand, taken from locations around the net.
Today’s story is from a migrant on the British expat web forum. In it the poster tells of how they cannot work, how they have had to sell their home and car and their child can’t even attend school all because their temporary visa ran out and cock-ups have prevented them from getting PR granted in time.
“Hi guys.
We are having some major immigration woes at the moment. As I write this my wife sits in tears due to the frustration of it all.
I won’t bore you with all the details but in brief : as our temporary residency was coming to an end, we applied for permanent residency. We applied in time, passed all the relevant police checks and medicals, and my wife qualifies under the essential workers list so as far as we were concerned it was just a case of waiting to hear from immigration before the dead line of January 10th.
Since then it’s been an absolute nightmare, we have had nothing but wrong advice, incompetence and shear bloody mindedness. I can only give you my word that we have followed procedure at each and every turn but despite our best efforts we are now in a position where, technically, my daughter cannot attend school, I cannot work and we cannot even get a date from immigration as to when we will hear if we are allowed to stay here.
As a (worst case scenario) precaution we have had to sell our lovely house and one of our cars in case we are uplifted at any moment. Their advice? we can do nothing but wait and their position on the predicament we find our selves in due to their incompetence? tough luck it’s not our problem.
The question then kind people is, is there anything at all we can do, does anyone know where we can get help to fight against the appalling treatment we have received at the hands of the untouchable Immigration department. We are desperate to resolve this as we so want to stay and we have done nothing wrong and we qualify on all counts, frankly we are at a loss as to what to do short of hurling abuse down the phone and I’m darn sure that wouldn’t help our cause.
Please help in anyway you can with advice, running up a blind alley and banging your head against a brick wall roughly equates to where we are at.”
E2NZ.org 
its is so sad. please keep up the fight. i have been in and still am in worse situations. may god bless you guys….
INZ does not have a heart, no matter what evidence you proof, if they have a mind set you cant do much.But iam not weak, INZ has accused us of forgery(though we have given them evidence of our innocence ) i shall fight till the end.moving to NZ was okay but the level of stress after the issues rose are unbearable.Please everyone never ever issue INZ with copied documents even though they are verified by reputable organizations. god i hate myself, feel such a failure moving here.nobody wants to listen, nobody wants to see the length you go to to proof your innocence.have made another submission through a lawyer and shall update later…..to all those in our boat..keep fighting and make your self heard.
Giving original documents to people is a sure way to risk losing them.
Just as when immigrants hand over their passports and visas to employers … they are at the mercy of those people.
Or you can even have those documents destroyed, and et voila, you are now STATELESS.
People who have trouble acknowledging certified true copies,
What guarantees do you have that they’ll treat originals as having greater authenticity?
BD aren’t you getting skilled immigrants who’ve been messed around by the immigration department mixed up with asylum seekers?
The author says he submitted his application in time but that INZ had dragged its feet leaving his family in limbo.
It may be a “joke”, but not in the way that you mean.
Another thing you could do is have plastic surgery too look like an Asian person such as a Chinese or Indian and a name change and then make up a fake story like many of them do saying that you will be killed if you get sent back to China, India, etc. Then you will be pretty much sorted. Or even do an Ahmed Zaui and go on hunger strike and get a left wing christian group to support you.
NZ immigration is a joke, they don’t seem to treat everyone the same way which is how it should be!
They don’t want to help you, but at the same time it’s illegal to not help you. So, they will hinder you and make the process extremely costly in terms of time and money, hoping that you will give up, and then become “just another foreigner who couldn’t make it in Godzone!”
Yes,id agree with mis treated.Better leave the country if they dont treat and respect your rights.Dont settle for less than you deserve.More opportunities await for you in other countries that welcome you…
just leave the country, otherwise more frustration will come. U cannot guarantee this country with all its fake promises one after another