Teenager wins last-minute clemency after being told she was in New Zealand illegally

By Gill Bonnett of RNZ

A teenage girl who was told she had lived in New Zealand illegally all her life won a clemency, thanks to an 11-hour discovery in her mother’s immigration file.

The 14-year-old discovered she was not a resident of New Zealand when her mother applied for her passport.

Immigration New Zealand (INZ) then decided that her 34-year-old mother, who is from Kiribati, could be liable for deportation because she had failed to declare her baby during her 2006 residency application.

The girl’s own application for residence was rejected.

Even the girl’s mother and the family’s lawyer accepted INZ’s decision that the family, from Kiribati, had not told immigration officials about the boy’s existence during his application for residency in 2006 under the Category of Pacific Access.

INZ decided that the mother would not have been eligible under immigration rules as a dependent daughter, if she had had a child herself.

The mother appealed her daughter’s case to the Immigration and Protection Court, saying there had been no intent to cheat and asking for an exception to the residency rules as a result of her special circumstances.

The court ruled that there had been no deception and the basis for INZ to reject his application was simply incorrect.

He found in INZ files the record of a phone call from the girl’s grandmother informing officials about the birth and internal emails dating back to 2006.

INZ’s notes showed that he knew she was born and had decided that it did not affect her mother’s residency application.

“The court concludes that the decision was not correct because Immigration New Zealand was aware of [her] existence before he decided his mother’s request. The decision is canceled and the application is returned to Immigration New Zealand for proper evaluation. “

A four-year trial

The case has been pending with the family since the girl was told she was in the country illegally in 2016.

Two years later, an immigration officer evaluating her residency application told colleagues that her mother could be responsible for the deportation because the girl had not been declared on her visa application.

“The mother believed that [her daughter] I was a resident of New Zealand and therefore finding that this was not the case came as a surprise, “the court noted in its decision earlier this year.

“Apparently unaware of the fact that New Zealand Immigration knew about [the girl] In determining her mother’s residency application, her representative claimed that the mother had not realized that she should have informed Immigration New Zealand of [the girl’s] birth before determining his family’s residence application. “

The court ordered INZ to reconsider his residency application.

“The question remains as to why all parties proceeded on the grounds that Immigration New Zealand had no knowledge [the girl] at the time the mother’s request was determined. The court may understand that your mother may have simply agreed, during the evaluation of [the girl’s] claim, that Immigration New Zealand did not know the appellant when it granted her residency.

“The evidence suggests that she relied on her parents to handle all aspects of the application and for that reason had limited participation in the evaluation process. That could also explain how the representative may have been confused on this matter.

“However, what is not clear is why Immigration New Zealand, in evaluating the appellant’s residence application, did not acknowledge that it had knowledge of [her] existence when evaluating the mother’s request. The information confirming this fact is found both in the mother’s residence application file and in her electronic notes. “