Kiwis push for pathways to citizenship in Australia

New Zealanders pushing for pathways to Australian citizenship will lobby Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil in Canberra this week, as more than 11,000 Kiwis remain stuck in a years-long visa processing backlog.

After Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern pledged renewed co-operation between the two countries in June – including progress on citizenship and enhanced voting rights – campaigners say applicants for the 189 visa stream were left languishing by the former Morrison government.

NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in June. Nick Moir

Lobby group Oz Kiwi will hold talks at Parliament House, including meeting Immigration Minister Andrew Giles. They will push Labor to end the exclusion of some New Zealanders in Australia from the National Disability Insurance Scheme, despite them having to pay for disability care through the Medicare levy.

Current rules allow some New Zealanders who have lived in Australia for more than four years to become permanent residents. Special categories exist for individuals resident in Australia before February 2001, including access to the NDIS.

The federal government estimates about 670,000 New Zealand citizens live in Australia – close to 15 per cent of New Zealand’s population. About 70,000 Australians living across the Tasman.

Oz Kiwi chairwoman Joanne Cox praised Dr Chalmers for his commitment to advancing the interest of New Zealanders resident in Australia, as a review of benefits and opportunities for citizens of both countries continues.

It is due to report to both governments before Anzac Day in April.

“If there’s upwards of 650,000 Kiwis in Australia, maybe a third of them would be dual citizens,” she said. “Maybe half the remainder have a pathway to permanent residency. We estimate between 200,000 and 250,000 have no pathway.

“The NDIS is one of the biggest issues. New Zealanders pay the Medicare levy but are the only group in Australia who can’t access the services. Children who were receiving treatment through state-based programs lost access when it all became part of the NDIS.”

The 1973 Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement allows citizens of the two countries to enter each other’s country to visit, live and work indefinitely.

New Zealand is the only country that has such an arrangement with Australia. There is no cap on arrivals, and health and character grounds are the only limitations on continued residency.

Ms Cox said Oz Kiwi was not pushing for New Zealanders living in Australia to get expanded voting rights, something flagged by Mr Albanese in July. Parliament’s joint standing committee on electoral matters is considering the proposal.

Constitutional experts and the Liberal Party have warned any such change would almost certainly face a High Court challenge.

“If we could get a fair and affordable pathway to citizenship for those who want it, we wouldn’t need to worry about voting,” Ms Cox said.

Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark told The Australian Financial Review voting rights for New Zealanders was question for the federal government.

“It’s a question for Australia. It has the sovereign right to decide who’s going to get the vote, if you’re going to give the right to New Zealanders who aren’t citizens, then isn’t everyone else who’s a permanent resident but not a citizen going to ask?

”It opens up a much bigger question: do you let permanent residents vote? You know, there was a time in New Zealand where voting laws were so lax that people who were overseas students could vote.

“It may be quite hard to argue that New Zealanders should be able to vote but not others who have resident status.”

Oz Kiwi members will also meet with the New Zealand High Commissioner, Dame Annette King while in Canberra.

“We’re doing this work, including pushing for the visa backlog to be quickly addressed, for the people we refer to as the ‘lost Kiwis’. They’re the ones who missed out,” Ms Cox said.

Zimbabweans head to court to stop SA banks and schools being ‘weaponised’ 

Moneyweb |  09  Dec 2022  

There are also reports that Operation Dudula is selling jobs held by Zimbabweans to South Africans. 

The latest court action opens up another front in a legal battle between Zimbabweans facing potential deportation next year and the Department of Home Affairs. Image: AdobeStock 

The Zimbabwe Exemption Permit Holders Association (Zepha) heads to court next week seeking an urgent interdict to stop banks and schools in South Africa from harassing Zimbabweans who are under threat of deportation once the Zimbabwe Exemption Permit (ZEP) system expires in 2023. 

Thousands of Zimbabweans living and working in SA under the ZEP system have been told by local SA banks to provide a valid visa or permit within seven days, failing which the matter will be reported to the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) in terms of Section 45 of the Immigration Act. 

Asked to comment on the request for ZEP holders to provide a valid visa or permit within seven days, FNB told Moneyweb in August that it was “monitoring developments regarding the status of Zimbabwean exemption permits and [the bank] communicates regularly to customers who may be affected”. 

“Our latest communication to customers who are ZEP holders aims to inform them about the most recent directive from the Department of Home Affairs and the options available to them.” 

“This is shocking … The banks are being weaponised against Zimbabweans in SA,” says Zepha legal representative Advocate Simba Chitando. 

“This is how it started with the Jews in 1930s Germany. Zimbabweans, who make a huge contribution to the SA economy, are being harassed and intimidated by banks, and now schools, several of which are refusing to enrol the children of ZEP holders,” claims Chitando. 

“There is a steady process of de-humanising Zimbabweans, stripping them of banking facilities and eventually forcing them out of the country.” 

Chitando’s comments follow reports that Zimbabweans working and paying tax in SA for more than a decade are being charged as foreigners at local hospitals. 

The latest court challenge opens up another front in a legal tussle that pits Zimbabweans living and working in SA against the DHA and Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi. 

Three groups – Zepha, the Helen Suzman Foundation and the Zimbabwe Immigration Federation – are challenging the DHA decision to end the ZEP system, which was introduced more than a decade ago to legitimise the status of Zimbabweans fleeing political and economic turmoil at home. 

The ZEP scheme has been extended three times under different names over the last decade, but Motsoaledi announced last year that the scheme would not be renewed. 

Some 178 000 Zimbabweans have until June 2023 to apply for alternative visas or either leave the country voluntarily or be deported. 

Chitando says private companies are capitalising on the persecution of Zimbabweans by offering to assist them in applying for visas they are unlikely to get because they do not qualify in terms of the DHA’s Critical Skills list. 

Operation Dudula 

“There are also reports of Operation Dudula [‘force out’ in isiZulu] members approaching petrol stations and restaurants with demands that all employed Zimbabweans, including ZEP holders, be replaced with South African nationals within 10 days. This is to form the basis of a separate criminal complaint against Operation Dudula,” says Chitando. 

“These actions are obviously unlawful, and we shall seek relief from the courts. What is especially concerning is reports from Zimbabweans that Dudula are selling jobs held by Zimbabweans to South Africans for anywhere between R2 000 and R5 000,” he adds. 

“Should this be proven true, it suggests that Dudula, apart from being a self-evident terror organisation intimidating foreign nationals, is also an organised crime network profiting from calculated terror campaigns at places of employment. It speaks to a complete breakdown of the rule of law in South Africa,” Chitando says. 

“It has also come to my attention that there are companies offering desperate ZEP holders services to acquire visas they do not qualify for. 

“My advice to ZEP holders, and the public, is that the ZEP case dealing with the legality of the decision by the Minister of Home Affairs will be heard on 11 to 14 April 2023, and all ZEP holders are lawful residing in South Africa until 30 June 2023,” he adds. 

“It is unethical, and unlawful, for anyone to exploit ZEP holders, pending a lawful judgment by the court.” 

The Helen Suzman Foundation and Zepha have argued in court papers that the threat of deporting hundreds of thousands of ZEP holders, including family members, will create one of the worst humanitarian crises the region has seen in decades.

www.samigration.com

Asylum seekers face challenges with DHA's online system - Lawyers for Human Rights 

News 24 | 09 Dec 2022

Asylum seekers are not getting the required documentation timeously, leaving them vulnerable to deportation. (Archive photo by Ashraf Hendricks, GroundUp) 

• Refugee and asylum seekers face challenges with the Department of Home Affairs' online system, Lawyers for Human Rights told the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs.

• It means they don't get the required documentation timeously, leaving them vulnerable to deportation.

• Furthermore, there is a reluctance to process children, exposing them to "structural xenophobia".

Refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa have problems with the Department of Home Affairs' online system, leaving them vulnerable to deportation and their children to "structural xenophobia", Lawyers for Human Rights told Parliament.

Lindokuhle Mdabe of Lawyers for Human Rights told the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on Tuesday that they had noted several challenges since the department introduced its online system.

The system came online in April 2021, GroundUp reported previously.

Mdabe said newcomers into the country intending to apply for refugee status had to do so through the online system.

The first problem, according to Mdabe, was a lack of internet access, coupled with language barriers.

Even after they lodged their claims online, they might have to wait up to two months for an interview. This rendered them vulnerable to deportation, because they had no documentation or proof that they were legally in the country.

Often, there weren't enough translators available for interviews, and in some cases, asylum seekers had been told to arrange their own translators.

Mdabe said non-governmental organisations, like themselves, were inundated with requests to perform functions the department was supposed to do. In their case, they had to provide affidavits and ensure people complied with requirements.

Furthermore, Lawyers for Human Rights detected a reluctance from the department to process children. When parents were in the refugee or asylum seeker programme, and they wanted their children to join, the children would not be joined, despite their applications.

This leaves children – minors – without documents, which means they experienced what Mdabe called "structural xenophobia", meaning their socio-economic rights were limited because they did not have documentation.

Mdabe said they had written to schools and hospitals, informing them that these children had rights, but the practice of insisting on documents persisted. 

"We also understand this is not the fault of the refugees," he said.

He added that the department also failed to implement sections of the Immigration Act, court orders, and judgments.

ANC MP Asnath Molekwa said: "The children cannot suffer because of the parents' sins."

She said the committee should determine whether there was a programme with a timeframe to deal with those issues.

DA MP Adrian Roos said compliance with court orders and judgments seemed to be a big problem with the Department of Home Affairs. 

He said the committee needed to get a list of all the related court orders and judgments

www.samigration.com

Our immigration system is failing on nearly every front

The House – 08 December 2022

A successful immigration policy needs to be based on secure borders.

We need a practical and sustainable procedure for bringing people to the United Kingdom whose skills are needed or to unite with settled families. We need safe and legal routes to bring people here who are genuinely escaping danger or persecution and have a legitimate claim to a secure haven in the UK rather than another destination. We need an efficient and fair way for processing the claims of applicants and removing those who have not reached the threshold, and an effectively functioning department of government to operate it all with pragmatism and compassion.

Unfortunately, on virtually all fronts our immigration system is failing; an unfortunate state of play acknowledged even by successive home secretaries. So, what’s to be done? Any solution needs to be multi-faceted.

If the ill-fated Rwanda scheme is to act as a proper deterrent, then literally planes have got to get off the ground

The whole vile trafficking trade could of course be stopped overnight if the French authorities agreed to intercept the boats at sea and bring passengers back to the French beaches after an expensive but abortive round trip. Alternatively, they could detain the migrant groups intercepted (largely due to yet more British subsidies of French police) heading for the beaches and check their status rather than confiscating an easily replaced boat and setting them free to try their luck again the following night. But why would they do that?

Surely it is not in French interests for the north French coast to be a magnet for “jungle” type camps simply because people think they can get into the UK. But as the Home Affairs Select Committee has proposed, and discussions with certain French politicians have revealed, there is a deal to be done. Intercepted migrants could be taken to the reception centres which UK taxpayers are funding and where they have links with the UK and in some cases could be allowed to apply for asylum here. The condition though must be that the French authorities detain and deport those who are not reasonably accepted rather than set them free and back into the arms of the people traffickers.

Alongside that we need to re-establish proper safe and legal routes so those taking to the boats do have an option if they are genuine asylum seekers, something the French criticise us for. I have called for a Dubs Two scheme which focuses on rescuing some of the most vulnerable unaccompanied children and a generous family reunion scheme for those with close relatives legally resident in the UK.

Currently such routes are only available to those who qualify through the explicit and generous Afghan, Syrian, Hong Kong and Ukrainian schemes and a handful of others through UNHCR.  Having viable alternatives need not mean opening our doors to tens of thousands more people but would certainly mean we could be much tougher on enforcement against a much larger cohort of people who are really economic migrants gaming our system. Safe and legal routes are no good for those who do not have a legitimate and legal claim to be granted leave to stay in the UK.

We need a fast-track system for those still coming from agreed safe countries with arrangements in place to return them as swiftly as possible. Clearly Albanians fit in to this category and we have arrangements with the Albanian government to share intelligence on processing claims and accepting returns.

The latest surge in those identifying as victims of modern-day slavery to legitimise a clandestine arrival clearly needs legislation change, but it does not anyway confer automatic right to residency. Arguably people are better protected by their own government at home, close to friend and fa…

[21:50, 08/12/2022] Rod - Visa / IT: ‘I sell queue spots at Home Affairs for a living’

3 December 2022 iol 

Home Affairs queues are notoriously long with many people getting turned away at the end of the day without getting help or even stepping into the premises.

Nathi, a 24-year-old from the south of Durban, has made it his livelihood to make the people’s trip to these offices as convenient and stress-free as possible....at a price.

The young man wakes up just after midnight and carries 10 chairs to the nearest Home Affairs branch and waits for individuals he can sell the spots to.

“I don’t usually get up at the same time, so occasionally there is a short line when I arrive. I charge R100 for each spot,” he says.

He claims that the security guards know him and do not harass him, but can ask him for hush money whenever they feel like it. 

On a good day, Nathi says he can get R800, but this depends on several factors such as the weather, the person’s patience or lack thereof, and how early he wakes up.

Without a higher education, he sees his options as bleak and this job the only one he can do at the moment. Nathi lives in his friend’s tuckshop which is near the home affairs offices.

“People can be incredibly rude. They view me as inferior to the muck on their shoes because I perform this kind of work. I have approached folks who treated me like just another tsotsi, and received slaps and punches as a result.”

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Nathi believes he may earn between R3 800 and R4 500 per month. He spends R200 on accommodation, R1 500 on groceries, and R2 000 per month to send money back home for his 3-year-old child.

The young man says that even though this is a difficult job, he is proud that he can, at the very least, provide for himself and his son and does not have to rely on anyone else.

Earlier this year, the Department of Home Affairs introduced the branch appointment booking system. This is a system that allows clients to make electronic bookings for selected services at selected branches.

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“Citizens are encouraged to make use of the online booking system because in the near future, selected Home Affairs offices will process smart ID and passport applications only for clients who have booked an appointment through the branch appointment system.

“Pre-booked clients will be serviced at dedicated counters. It’s quick and easy.”

Despite this, lines are extremely long in most branches, and Nathi believes people like him will continue to make a living through these means.

www.samigration.com

Calls for DHA to act swiftly amid asylum application appeals backlog

Weekend Argus |  8 December 2022

Department of Home Affairs has been urged to hasten the processing of the asylum appeal backlogs which the Department says stands at 131 190 cases. 

The department has opted for an email appointment booking system for new asylum applicants, of which 31 973 still need to be processed.

While the department said that the rationale behind the email appointment booking system was to work through the two-year backlog, Adrian Roos, a member of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs, said that of the 131 190 applications which remain unfinalised, since 2019 less than 1000 had been finalised.

“The Minister is always quick to blame lack of staff and budget for any one of the various backlogs at Home Affairs, but in this case (it) has been supported with R146, 784,364 million from the UNHCR to implement a 4-year implementation plan to eradicate the backlog.

“The longer the appeal applications take to process, the longer those applicants are legally entitled to work in South Africa. The Minister needs to show some urgency on processing the asylum appeal backlog. Providing assistance to undocumented South Africans in schools is also essential before they disappear from the school system and in to a life of poverty,” said Roos.

Amid a growing narrative of undocumented refugees being the cause of the country’s socio economic problems, Sharon Ekambaram, from the Refugee and Migrant Rights Programme at Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), says that the DHA’s inoperable systems and backlogs left asylum seekers and refugees susceptible to unlawful arrest and detention, due to their permits not being issued timeously by the Refugee Reception Offices (RROs).

“The backlog is directly related to the poor quality of decision making when people seeking refugee protection are routinely rejected at RROs. We do not really know the internal operational challenges faced by the DHA; however we are informed by our asylum seeker and refugee clients that when they respond to an invitation to present themselves to the refugee reception offices in person, they are turned away many times due to lost file contents and files that are at an offsite storage facility in Brits, and it takes time to obtain them. 

“ We have also found that in some instances they are not following the verification procedures prescribed by the Immigration Regulations, thereby leading people to be detained for prolonged periods of time,” said Ekambaram.

In response, the DHA said that the department had embarked on strategies to recover full services to reduce the possibility of overcrowding.

“The Refugee Reception Centres were opened to all services on 03 May 2022, except for newcomers in Cape Town where the Department is still finalising renovations of the new office. The offices are attending to clients through appointments. Clients who walk-in without appointment, where capacity allows, are also attended to over and above scheduled appointments. So far, the number of appointments received via emails is 17 455, as of 31 May, including duplicates, and there have been 1860 appointments booked as of 31 May.

“Given the backlog estimates built over the past two years, the department is embarking on strategies to recover full services in a manner that reduces the possibility of overcrowding through the continuation of the online solutions to manage the volumes of clients visiting offices versus capacity, increase capacity at offices with limited capacity, prioritise the reopening of Cape Town Refugee Reception Office to newcomers, and utilise overtime in particular on critical areas like new comer adjudication.

“Furthermore, the Department is also finalising the recovery strategy which includes fast-tracking recruitment of additional staff, working overtime and the re-opening of the Cape Town Refugee Centre; these processes, once concluded, will assist in eradicating the backlog that was created by the closure,” said DHA.

www.samigration.com