Newsflash

Recently there have a lot of stories about declined partnership-based visa applications in the media. Discretion was removed for visitor visas for arranged marriages and other genuine relationships where the couple, for religious, cultural or other reasons had not yet lived together. Pacific Legal joined others in advocating for a review. Eventually, a more flexible […]

Pacific Legal recently raised concerns at situations where partnership temporary work visa applicants were being told by Immigration New Zealand to overstay after the expiry of their interim visas, because of processing delays. One of our clients received an email from Immigration New Zealand which invited them to remain unlawfully while they waited for a

  Employer Support for Visa While the application process for most temporary work visas are currently led by the candidate, by 2021, the process will be led by you, the employer.  You will want to have met all your obligations so your potential employee can start working for you as soon as possible. There are

Are you prepared? There are many different types of work visas. They generally fall into two types: Employer assisted. Others work visas such as graduate visas, partnership, working holiday, specific purpose and various specialist visas. These are not changing. From 2021 the biggest changes in 10 years will reduce six categories of employer assisted visas to just one

You said what? – Upcoming changes to character rules pose risks for both applicants and employers If you thought “character” issues in immigration applications are just about criminal convictions: think again! Immigration New Zealand is proposing a major redefinition of “misleading information” that includes disputed, missed or unclear answers regardless of intention. This will include information provided (or omitted)

Immigration and Employment law in New Zealand When you recruit and hire migrant workers, you must comply with employment and immigration laws.  Under these laws, employers have certain responsibilities and obligations. Employers are legally able to offer a job to an overseas candidate before they have a work or resident visa, but by the time

Hiring overseas workers Hiring overseas workers can seem like a real challenge for employers.  Recent proposed changes to work visas have made many employers uneasy.  However, we still have plenty of employers that we assist on a daily basis who simply can’t find the talent that they need onshore.  Here are some simple rules to

Employer-assisted work visas The upcoming changes to the New Zealand immigration system will affect almost every person who holds or intends to apply for an employer-assisted work visa. A central feature is that all employers wishing to employ a migrant worker must first get one of three types of accreditation status with Immigration New Zealand

Immigration New Zealand’s (INZ) processing delays can easily lead to confusion and stress for applicants. Recent publicity around the increasing delays reminds us that, while delays have always been a fact of life, we’ve now reached a crisis point for many applicants and employers. Some categories have delays of between four and five months (as

“New NZ immigration targets slow visa processing” Richard was interviewed by Radio NZ about how visa processing times are being manipulated to engineer fewer approvals and meet Government residence targets. Immigration New Zealand says it is not allocating case officers to some residence applications for more than five months. Ministers will decide later this year