New Zealand Declined Visitor Visa: Pacific Islanders make up over half the Visas
With the increase in the immigration application, there is also a surge in the Visitor Visa applications in immigration New Zealand.
A large number of Visitor Visa applications are submitted in the INZ post pandemic. The INZ is carefully assessing all the applications and is rejecting those they consider will not hold the regulations of visitor visa.
The INZ has received a notable number of applications from the pacific Islander and almost 1500 visa applications from the month of August to October were rejected by INZ for 68 countries in which half of applications were from 9 pacific countries.
The INZ is alleged to be biased against Pacific countries as out of 1299 applications from Tonga 224 were declined while only 6 applications out of 1398 applications were declined for Thailand.
371 applications out of 3380 from FIJI were rejected while the declined visitor visa applications for South Africa was 30 out of 3816 applications.
While the Statistics provided shows that half of the declined visitor visa applications were made by the Pacific Islanders and also allege the INZ to discriminate against Pasifika.
The INZ processes all the applications carefully and judges all the applications to check whether or not the applicants will follow the conditions that are enclosed with the visa. The main condition is to return after a specific time .
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also stated that they ensure that all the visa conditions should be met by the applicants while they stay in NZ.
Also the applications are processed thoroughly to check whether the applicants are purely visiting the country for traveling purposes.
Member of Polynesian Panthers Alec Toleafoa stated that the country is open for all for traveling but the pacific islanders applications are higher than average. And the special relationship with them also doesn’t reflect on these.
While the Immigration Minister Michael Wood stated that all the decisions on the visa applications were made according to evidence attached with the application.
The bona fide key factor was used to assess the application to check whether or not the applicant will return after the end of the visa duration.
Professor Steven Ratuva, The director of Pacific studies at the University of Canterbury stated that the INZ is biased against the pacific islanders.
