Migrants and immigration advisers are crying foul over Immigration New Zealand's "impossible" deadline for filing family sponsorship papers, and one religious ethnic organisation is taking the Immigration Minister to court over the matter.
The minister's official announcement on May 10 gave applicants only a three-day window before the policy changed. Since May 15, migrants could no longer sponsor their siblings or close family members and the parent sponsorship category was also temporarily closed.
Christine Laurencio, 47, who had spent about $6000 to put together her application to sponsor her parents from the Philippines, could not get the medical reports in time and failed to meet the deadline.
"It's just heartbreaking, and I am just so angry and disappointed that Immigration, knowing the complexities of putting an application together, gave us a deadline that was impossible to meet," she said.
The Supreme Sikh Council of New Zealand is taking legal action against the minister after many of its members "cannot apply for visas for which they would have been eligible".