The Indian Weekender, Friday 18 September 2020

10 NEW ZEALAND ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2020
Friday, September 11, 2020 The Indian Weekender
HOW PARTNERSHIP VISA APPLICATIONS BASED ON INDIAN
MARRIAGES CAN AGAIN FALL THROUGH THE CRACKS?
SANDEEP SINGH
The Minister of Immigration Kris Faafoi
had announced on Monday, September
14, in an exclusive interview with
the Indian Weekender that Immigration New
Zealand will be restarting the processing of
partnership visa applications so as to let them
join their partners, who are NZ citizens and
residents.
INZ has confirmed that as of August 14, there
were 2,258 offshore temporary relationshipbased
visa applications on hand and 2,238
offshore residence relationship-based visa
applications on hand.
So what does this mean for Indian-New
Zealanders who are citizens and residents of
this country and have chosen to marry and form
a spousal relationship within their culture as per
their traditions, which often means travelling
overseas and getting married?
Will they be able to reunite with their spouses
as per the latest assurance by the Immigration
Minister about the restarting of partnership visa
processing?
Unfortunately, No.
At least as long as the current level of
“disconnect” is allowed to persist between INZ
and the government.
What is the “disconnect”
between Govt & INZ?
Sadly, the current government’s
understanding about the core problem of
partnership visa for Indian marriages and INZ’s
operational understanding of dealing with such
visa applications are like two rail-tracks, which
deceptively appears to be running side by side
and appearing to be aligned – but in reality, they
never meet together.
INZ is restricted by the current immigration
policy that only recognises traditional Pakeha/
Eurocentric world-view of forming a spousal
relationship where a couple has to live together
before they become a couple.
In Indian culture and many other major
cultures of the orient, prior living together is
not the necessary requirement of becoming a
couple and is in fact actively discouraged, at
least in a vast segment of such societies.
Therefore the majority of Indian marriages,
especially where an Indian-New Zealander
prefer to go overseas to marry within their own
cultural settings, do not fulfil the requirement
under current immigration law – which is
clearly a biased, one size fit all, view of a
spousal relationship.
Immigration system’s deep
rooted-bias against Indianmarriages
This is indeed a permanent deep-rooted bias
towards partnerships based on traditional Indian
marriages, as they are never treated equally
to a white man/woman trying to bring their
partner from anywhere in Europe, Americas or
anywhere else in the world.
For several years, INZ’s frontline officers, in
the absence of any suitable policy reflective of
NZ’s changing demography, had been taking a
compassionate view on their own, and issuing
a “relationship-based General Visitor Visa”
instead, so as to first allow such people to join
their Kiwi-partners and live together and fulfil
the requirements for partnership visas.
Ever since this practice was abruptly
disturbed by INZ’s Mumbai office in May 2019,
the institutional-bias towards Indian marriages
for the purpose of immigration continues to
flare up time and again, putting those in Indianmarriages
in a disadvantage as compared to
other ethnicities and cultural groups.
Towards the latter half of 2019, there was
an intense community resentment and media
scrutiny, that propelled the then Immigration
Minister to make some changes in “Culturally
arranged marriage visa category,” in the hope
that going forward most of the applications
would be catered under that new category and
the disadvantage towards Indian marriages
would be removed.
However, that hope has remained elusive, as
not only there was any meaningful uptake from
new applications under that new category, but
also INZ had quietly reverted to their age-old
business as usual approach of issuing “general
visitor visa based on relationship.”
How Kiwi-Indians getting
General Visitor Visa are
disadvantaged
That General Visitor Visa issued explicitly
to partners of Indian-New Zealanders continue
to remain disadvantaged as many such visa
holders who have recently got their visas have
been locked out of NZ borders after Covid
related border closure.
When the government had started to offer
relief in June this year to allow partners of NZ
citizens and residents who hold partnership
visas to return to the country, all such Indianorigin
people who were partners of Indian-New
Zealanders (citizens and residents) have not
been granted such exceptions.
The Indian Weekender has been at the
forefront of raising voice for the Indian-New
Zealanders who are experiencing forced
separation simply because of “disconnect”
between immigration department and the
government and are being unfairly targeted
purely because of their race and cultural
practices.
Surabhi Joshi is married to NZ resident Ankit
Saptrishi and first applied partnership visa last
year when she was advised by INZ that she
will not fulfil “living together” requirement
for partnership visa and was advised to file
General Visitor Visa, which they applied and
was approved.
She had arrived in January 2020, with only
having to return on an emergency trip to visit
her severely sick father before NZ borders were
closed and has been locked out since then.
Now, when all other Pakeha/European
partners, who had partnership visas, were
allowed exception to enter NZ and join their
partners, but not Surabhi Joshi who had a
General Visitor Visa.
Amrutha Kishore, an Indian-New Zealander
resident who got married to her long time beau
who was working in Hongkong, is frustrated
that her husband is not allowed an exception to
enter NZ, simply because INZ had given him a
General Visitor Visa.
There are hundreds and thousands of such
examples, who have either received GVV
recently or are currently in partnership visa
queues that INZ will be restarting to process
who will not be allowed to join their Kiwi
partners despite the current Minister of
Immigration’s recent announcement.
To make it worse, INZ would not have
readily available data about the number of
applications emanating from India which first
sought Partnership Visa, but were eventually
granted General Visitor Visas to quantify the
scale and the scope of the deep-rooted problem
facing Kiwi-Indian community.
Meanwhile, several industry stakeholders,
including noted immigration lawyers have told
the Indian Weekender that they have not seen
any major movement in the culturally arranged
marriage visa category with most of their
clients still pursuing the path of applying for
partnership visa and getting in return General
Visitor Visa from INZ.
Immigration Lawyer Alastair McClymont
told the Indian Weekender that only 1% of his
total clients of partnership visa were eligible for
culturally arranged marriage visa category.
Another Immigration lawyer Aron Martin
also concurs saying that it was very rare that
his clients qualified under the strict definition
of culturally arranged marriage visa category.
It is clear that soon, when INZ restarts
processing of partnership visa applications all
such applications based on Indian marriages
will continue to fall through the cracks.