Happy Spring to all our friends! I just adore the new season.
I like to think of spring as new beginnings...
the flowers, insects,sunnier days and more sun.
As we near the summer season all of us in the New Zealand Immigration Industry are faced with the widest revamp of the Immigration Act.
In April 2006 the Government disclosed the most comprehensive review of immigration legislation in two decades.
"The implementation of this fresh Immigration Act will help deliver the migrants we require and the Act was an important focus in 2009/2010 and will be again in 2010/2011 as we move towards a 28 November general commencement date.
The bulk of the changes will start on 29 November 2010.
Until that date the laws of the Immigration Act 1987 apply.
" Some of these changes are: Sponsoring: If you sponsor someone to come to New Zealand, you will now be responsible for all their maintenance, accommodation, repatriation / deportation costs if required.
More changes in this regard are planned in the future.
Businesses are also now able to sponsor individuals in certain circumstances.
The indefinite returning residents visa will fall away and be replaced with the "permanent residents visa".
This is basically just a name change and the conditions for obtaining the permanent residents visa remain the same as for the indefinite returning residents visa.
The residents review board will fall away, as well as a few others to make way for one, more streamlined board called the Immigration and Protection Tribunal.
This should make the appeals process a lot easier and smoother for declined immigrant applicants as well as for ourselves as their agents.
VisaView - Visaview is a new system set up to assist employers when deciding whether to employ an immigrant or not.
On the system they can now check whether the applicant is eligible to work in New Zealand and under what conditions.
As the law on employing illegal workers has been tightened for employers, this new system will allow them to employ only workers who are eligible to work in New Zealand.
An exciting new visa which is going to help a lot of potential immigrants is the new Interim visa.
We often find that those here on work permit and have applied for permanent residence find themselves between a rock and a hard place when their work visa expires before their permanent residence is approved.
Previously they would have had to leave the country until such time as their PR was approved.
Now they can apply for an Interim visa which will allow them to remain in New Zealand until their pending application has been finalised.
While we are getting used to the amended Immigration Act we are facing ongoing challenges in the industry.
The Immigration route for all categories has become more intense over the last two years and our finding is that Immigration New Zealand have a conservative view when it comes to especially issuing work permits.
This is clearly the result of the worldwide economic downturn.
This action leads to businesses having difficulty in recruiting skilled workers and we will be looking at another huge skill shortage in 2011.
This is of course exciting news for people thinking of moving to New Zealand.
As we continue to welcome new migrants to our country our goal is to provide quality service at an affordable price that is within reach of most migrants.