There were tears and hugs in the wake of the Government’s decision to allow 165,000 people working in New Zealand to apply for residency.
It’s been stalled since the Covid outbreak and the pressure has been building on the Government to act.
A Wellington carer told 1News she’s been living in limbo while awaiting the news.
Joan Lagman is one of 165,000 people living in New Zealand who can now apply for residency. That number includes 5,000 health workers and 15,000 construction workers.
“It’s a big thing for me, because of the lockdown and all the things - I was planning to go home or transfer to Canada,” Lagman said.
Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi made the announcement on Thursday morning, saying applications to get the 2021 Resident Visa would open in two phases: on December 1 and on March 1, 2022. The “majority” of applications would be granted within a year of their category opening.
Jacinda Ardern called the announcement “significant”.
“So for those who are settled, skilled and scarce, we are offering a pathway to residency that acknowledges the one-off situation we are in in this pandemic.
“You will be hard pressed to find a decision in immigration policy in recent history as significant as this one,” she said on Thursday.
BusinessNZ chief executive Kirk Hope says it’s the biggest change in immigration in a decade.
“For Auckland businesses, I think getting to level 2 in combination with this would be a great step. it would take a lot of pressure off,” he told 1News.
But for some it's too late. 1News talked to an Otaki doctor in April who made the decision to go back to the UK.
And there are the children of skilled migrants who haven't been able to go to university or work and who've had to repeat a year at school.
National’s immigration spokesperson Erica Stanford says the process has taken too long.
“They've known about this problem for a long time and have sat and done nothing and let it get to the point where they have no option but to just give everyone residence in a fast-track process,” Standford said.
Faafoi says it is a step “to stop their suffering” by prioritising them in the first wave of the applications.
The pressure has been building on this issue for months and now Immigration New Zealand has been tasked with processing 165,000 applications in the next 12 months.
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