IMMIGRATION MINISTER ALLAYS INDIAN COMMUNITY’S CONCERN ON CHANGES IN THE POLICY

Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse has spoken with and listened to the concerns of, members of the Indian community on the recent changes in the immigration policy.

Speaking this morning to a full house audience in a public meeting organised by National List MP Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi in association with the Indian Association in Manukau East, the Minister spoke eloquently for ninety minutes on stretch addressing major concerns of the community.

National MP Dr Parmjeet Parmar was also present at the meeting.

While not everyone was happy with the Minister’s inability to comment on their individual visa situations, the Minister did demonstrate a genuine commitment to engage with the community and allay some of the major concerns and widely prevalent myths in the community around immigration.

There were many concerned voices in the community about the situation of international students who may miss the Kiwi-dream of getting residency in this country with the new rule being introduced.

The Minister acknowledged the concerns of community members and even sympathised with their situation but reiterated the fact that the “days of international students getting residency based on low-skilled jobs are over in New Zealand.”

The Minister also assured to look into a request raised by New Zealand Indian Central Association (NZICA), the parent body for all Indian community organisations in New Zealand – that the department of immigration should be able to accept the “sponsorship letter” issued by them to support the individual application of community members.

This has been a long time request from the NZICA from the Department of Immigration. The Minister’s offer to have a look into this is a “step forward” for the community.

Speaking exclusively to Indian Weekender immediately after the meeting, the Minister further clarified some common myths around the changes in the policy.

IWK: Do Indian international students need to live in any kind of fear about the impending changes in the immigration policy?

Michael Woodhouse: I don’t think so. International education has been really an important part of our growing economy over the last few years, and I think that’s going to continue. I do think that there is a deliberate strategy by the providers and the government to move from quantity to quality of the students. I think a higher education will help those students who might have aspirations for a pathway to the residence.  

But it’s not going to be possible for all graduates coming from sub-degree programs at the moment to be able to get that pathway to the residence. I think we need, to be honest with them about that.

IWK: Community’s concern is that why these sub-degree courses and education providers are not regulated and instead students are being targeted.

MW: Well, I think that is a question to be asked to NZQA and the Minister of Tertiary Education. But I know that they [education providers] are being regulated. There are a number of education providers who are offering sub-degree programs that are of concern. Some of them are already closed, and the Immigration New Zealand work with the affected students to make sure that they are able to make the transition to other courses. That is a stressful process I acknowledge. But that is to ensure that the New Zealand reputation of a provider of very high quality of international education is maintained. And I think that’s what we are doing.

IWK: The main issue of the students is that many of them have already arrived in New Zealand based on their confidence in what we are calling as “sub-degree” courses to help them secure residency?

MW: Well if that is an expectation that they have then I believe that the New Zealand government has not set it. With an overwhelming demand for residency in Skilled Migrant Category, it was necessary to lift the bar. So the number of points required and now the remuneration threshold that is being consulted on could be a barrier to some of them. I accept that it could affect those who are already here. But I do believe that it is important that they do get better advice before they come to NZ about the likelihood of pathway to the residence.

Even in current settings four out of five international students are not getting residency.

IWK: From what we have heard from you earlier today that there are jobs out of Auckland. Does that mean that students who are worried about new income threshold can move outside Auckland and possibly get jobs paying $49,000 and leading to residency?

MW: Certainly what I know is that for those people who are getting Skilled Migrant Category Residence, the average salary of applicants are higher out of Auckland than it is in Auckland. The other thing is that we incentivise the search for skilled jobs outside of Auckland by offering more points to those who are successful in securing jobs outside Auckland.

IWK: Minister you earlier talked about the Parent visa category which is another area of concern for our communities. Should we expect any good news in the Parent visa category soon?

MW: Well unlikely in respect of numbers. Previously there were 5,500 resident category resident visas issued every year, which was reduced to 2000 and because we have a huge number already in the pipeline, we have to suspend it for a year temporarily.

When it reopens, then the expectations for the sponsorship by children will be higher, and I am also consulting if the temporary setting for the parents' visa could be adjusted to make it more parents friendly. That work is underway, and we might have more to say later in the year. Source: indianweekender

NZ's tighter policies lead to big fall in Pacific migration

Tighter immigration policies have led to significant falls in the number of approved Pacific migrants over the last five years.

Despite record immigration levels in New Zealand, the number of Pasifika people being allowed in to the country in some categories has dropped by 28 percent since 2012.

A Samoan woman who wished to remain anonymous has been advocating for her two nieces to get residency in New Zealand.

While the girls' parents are both New Zealand citizens, applications to get both children a visitors visa longer than three months have been turned down, multiple times.

"One time we sent the applications through, one of the applications came back for the older girl saying saying that she needed a police certificate, " the woman claimed.

"So I went in to the Manukau branch and I said 'I don't understand'. So [the immigration officer] went and spoke to her manager and came back and says 'no we require a police certificate from Samoa'."

The woman said she was shocked at the response, given that the girl is only two years old.

The family said they were struggling financially to renew the visitors visas every three months just to keep the girls in the country legally.

Immigration lawyer Richard Small has been working with migrants from the pacific for over 20 years and said the impact on the pacific region had become increasingly heavy.

"It has been getting more difficult and progressively so. But that has really accelerated with the changes in the family area. There's been far more restriction."

Mr Small believed immigration policies did not strike a fair balance between bringing in skilled workers and valuing family relationships.

"There are many, many hurdles to just do basic things that go to the core of the identity of these families, that they need to be together with their loved ones," he said

"Now when there's a clear benefit, we need to have an open mind. We're not finding that. We're finding usually a closed door, in fact a locked door."

Minister of Pacific Peoples Alfred Ngaro said while the impact on Pacific families was significant, they weren't the only ones affected.

"I know in the family category for instance we've had less approved applications from all countries, not just the pacific, it's right across the board. So this is not something that's a trend for pacific" he explained.

mmigration New Zealand's Assistant Manager Geoff Scott, agreed.

"I would suspect that those figures would probably be quite consistent across the globe for all areas because the very fact that it's a capped category does mean that the oversubscription does occur."

But figures released to RNZ International under the Official Information Act showed that while the number of Pacific applicants approved each year under the Capped Family residence had dropped by 28 percent since 2012, the overall number of applicants approved each year had relatively stayed the same in that period.

And it was a similar fall in the Skilled Migrant category, even though the number of approved applicants each year overall has gone up by nearly 7000 in the last five years.

Mr Small said even if tighter policies weren't explicitly targeting the pacific, the criteria had clearly had that effect. Read More: radionz

New Zealand has a patchy record on Muslim immigration

Donald Trump's attack on Islam, particularly his efforts to impose a temporary travel ban from seven (recently changed to six) predominantly Muslim countries, has rightly caused outrage in this country.

Some of the comments seem to suggest though that the events in the United States during these early weeks of the Trump administration are a type of madness unimaginable in New Zealand. We haven't come anywhere close to a "Muslim ban", but this country's past policies in relation to Muslim immigration are by no means beyond reproach. Could populist and xenophobic policies surface in future?

Discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and religion characterised New Zealand's immigration and refugee policy until the late 1980s. The country wanted British immigrants. Small numbers of refugees from the Middle East began arriving in New Zealand from the late 1970s, comprising people of Baha'i and Christian backgrounds.

The admission of Muslim refugees remained controversial. In response to pressure from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to resettle Iranian refugees in 1985, New Zealand said that it wasn't prepared to accept any Iranian refugees other than those of the Baha'i faith. In the mid 1980s, churches and groups (such as Islamic Associations) approached the New Zealand government to accept refugees from Afghanistan.

New Zealand was unwilling to accept more than a very small number largely due to the perception that the refugees, who were "devout" Muslims from rural often nomadic backgrounds, would have difficulty fitting in.

The 1987 Immigration Act reflected a major policy shift. It ushered in the selection of immigrants on the basis of their skills and qualifications rather than their ethnicity and religion. New Zealand's refugee quota of 800 (later reduced to 750) was set up at this time.

The refugees would be accepted because of their need for protection (and sometimes on a regional basis) not on the basis of their religion or ethnicity. Refugees from the Middle East and Africa, who were Muslim, arrived in significant numbers, escaping war, famine and economic collapse which displaced millions of people.

Among the newcomers were Somali refugees who arrived in the early 1990s. Staff at the organisation then charged with settling refugees recalled the debate about their acceptance. There was anxiety about their being Muslim. What if they are fundamentalists? What about female circumcision?

There were concerns about the group of 50 Muslim refugees from Saudi Arabia New Zealand accepted in the mid 1990s after the Gulf War.

According to some people involved in refugee resettlement at that time, the issue was not religious bias against the Muslim faith but ease of settlement in the community. If the cultural differences were too large, the community wouldn't cope. If the community couldn't accept the refugees, their chances of having good settlement outcomes were poor.

Increased security concerns after the terrorist attacks of September 2001 (9/11) impacted on the selection of refugees, with immigration reports on quota composition referring to the need to ensure that cases did not pose a security risk. The high-profile case of Algerian asylum seeker Ahmed Zaoui, a lecturer in Islamic traditions, shows how the new security concerns affected the way New Zealand dealt with asylum seekers.

Zaoui arrived in New Zealand in 2002, seeking political asylum. He was detained and transferred to the maximum security prison at Paremoremo, where he was kept in isolation for 240 days. In 2003, New Zealand declined Zaoui's application for refugee status on the grounds that though he had a well-founded fear of persecution in Algeria, there were "serious reasons" for considering that he had committed terrorist or non-political crimes. Read More: stuff

Missing Chinese tourist found in Taupo

A Chinese tourist who went missing after leaving her Auckland hotel room last week has been found in Taupo, police say. 

Police located 42-year-old Ling Fang Mai at a Taupo address last night.

Mai initially arrived in Auckland last Wednesday as part of a tour group and spent the afternoon visiting the Mt Eden summit before checking into a motel in Parnell around 8pm.

That night, she told her roommate she was going for a walk but never returned. 

It is understood she was in New Zealand on a one month tourist visa.

On Tuesday, Mai contacted a family member in China to say she was OK.

However, detective inspector Aaron Pascoe said police continued to look for her as the circumstances of her disappearance and the single contact with her family did not fully allay concerns for her welfare. 

A team of officers had been making enquiries about her whereabouts since her disappearance and located her at a Taupo address.

A great deal of time and effort went into looking for her, he said. Source: stuff

Tempted To Move Out Of The U.S.? New Zealand Wants To Help You Escape

Right after the presidential election, visits from U.S. citizens to the Immigration New Zealand website soared. Think 56,300 visits in 24 hours versus the usual average of 2,300. And New Zealand Now — a website about living, working, studying and investing in the country — experienced the same spike, with a 192% increase in U.S. visitors. Even Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joked before the election that she might move to New Zealand if Trump won.

While some Americans might not have been serious about their intent to leave the country, 

The city has launched an initiative called LookSee Wellington. The goal? To recruit 100 talented technology candidates from across the globe, with a focus on the United States. The program arranges meetings with prospective employers who have roles that match a candidate's skills, and flights and accommodations are covered.

But here’s the thing: Whether you work in the tech industry or not, Wellington is a great place to live. Diversity is celebrated, gay marriage is legal and the first female leader was elected more than 20 years ago. If you hold a work visa valid for two years or more, public healthcare is free or low cost. The city also has more restaurants, cafes and bars per capita than New York City. And New Zealand has been called an "incubation nation," a place where innovation thrives and where people can make a real change and have impact.

We interviewed one expat who has already made the move: San Francisco native Alanna Irving (formerly Krause), who is cofounder of both Loomio, an online tool for collaborative decision-making, and Enspiral, a social entrepreneurship network. Here, Alanna tells why she relocated to Wellington — and why you should, too.

Begley Bloom: What inspired you to move to Wellington?

Irving: I traveled and lived in different countries throughout my twenties, just sort of jumping from one opportunity to the next. It was great, but I eventually came to realize that I wanted to make more considered choices, connect to a community more deeply and find meaningful work that wasn't "just a job." When I discovered a thriving community of social entrepreneurs in such a fantastic city, I knew it was a place I could continually learn and grow, personally and professionally. I've been here over six years, and that's still true.

Begley Bloom: How did you find out about Wellington? 

Irving: I originally came to New Zealand on a working holiday visa, with no particular plan to stay long term. At the time, I was just hopping from country to country soaking up experiences. But once I got to Wellington, I pretty much knew I wouldn't want to leave after only one year.

Begley Bloom: Tell me about your companies. When did you start them? What were you doing before?

Irving: My resume before I got here was all over the place. I started a web design company in the U.S., was a translator in Japan, worked in IT in London, studied in Spain and volunteered in India. I didn't know how all these different experiences were going to add up to a career — or if they ever would. When I arrived in Wellington in 2011, I encountered entrepreneurs using the tools of business and software for positive social impact in exciting ways. All my different experiences actually prepared me perfectly to work at the intersection of people, tech, business and impact, so I jumped into Enspiral. It grew from just a few software developers to a network of over 300 people with diverse skills, who want to use their working lives to make the world a better place. A group of us founded Loomio in 2012, when entrepreneurs from Enspiral and activists from the Occupy movement realized we actually needed to solve the same problem: effective decision-making without meetings. We started a worker-owned co-op and built an online tool that's now used by thousands of groups around the world. Read More: forbes

Indian students hope to return to NZ after deportation

A group of students who are on the verge of being deported say they will continue to fight their case once they're back in India.

Nine students will fly out over the coming days after more than eight months fighting the decision.

The students gathered in their Auckland lawyer's boardroom today and finished off some paperwork for a complaint to the Ombudsman to be made.

The students and their lawyer, Alastair McClymont, said they were unfairly paying the price of India-based agents who submitted fraudulent documents on their behalf. But after failing to get Associate Minister of Immigration David Bennett to intervene they'll be returning home over the next couple of days.

Rahul Reddy said he has organised for his friends to pick him up from the airport.

He said he would be going back to live with his parents and would start to look for work. But despite it all he said he was still set on returning in order to gain work experience.

"Because we've spent our money here, it's not a small amount that we've spent here. It's almost like $30,000 that we spent here for our education and for our work experience to gain. So without that I cannot go back to my country and work there. I have to show them the experience of practical knowledge here."

Mr Reddy said his bags were packed and he would be spending the weekend saying goodbye to friends, family, and members of the Unitarian Church who supported the cause by providing sanctuary.

Mr McClymont said it was far from over.

He was planning on filing a complaint to the Ombudsman about how the students' characters were assessed with a specific emphasis on their case that the students were not aware of what their agents submitted on their behalf.

He was feeling confident the outcome would be positive, he said.

"And if it is I intend to ask Immigration New Zealand and the Ombudsman [to] go back and review up to 150 applications which have been declined by the same method."

Mr McClymont said he would seek to remove his clients' deportation statuses so they were able to apply for a visa to return to New Zealand.

He expected the decision would take a couple of months.

'New Zealand's reputation is going down'

The students returning to India would continue to seek justice there by visiting the local police to press charges against their agents.

The Indian Express newspaper was also starting to report on the students' cases.

One student who was returning, Manoj Narra, said it was not a good look for New Zealand.

"In India New Zealand's reputation is going down, frankly speaking ... Because everyone is saying that if Immigration is in the right position they have to check before entering this country."

He said people were asking why discrepancies were picked up after students had already started studying.

The students maintained that justice had not been served in their case and said they did not want any other international students to New Zealand to have to endure the same ordeal. Source: radionz

Innovation schemes show NZ still prepared to benefit from immigration

New Zealanders pride themselves in their ideas and innovation – we call it our No. 8 wire mentality.

Throw us a problem and we'll find a way to sort it.

Challenge us to find a better way to achieve something and we'll do that, too. It's one of the things we're known around the world for.

In that context, the Wellington region is a hot-bed of innovation.

Our high-tech companies are world leaders in areas from computer games, apps, and whizzy accounting systems, to online tools, telecommunications and system design.

Our scientists are at the forefront of drug development and medical diagnostics.

And our film sector has achieved animation innovation we can only marvel at.

Through all this, our companies are always prepared to take their ideas to the world when they need help to take them to the next step. 

Hardly surprising, then, that one of the most exciting developments of recent years is a move in the other direction – encouraging the world's best to come here to contribute to our search for further world-leading innovation. 

I'm talking about an initiative the like of which I suspect there are few that exist anywhere else.  

The Edmund Hillary Fellowship (EHF) is a programme that each year gives 100 entrepreneurs, investors and start-up teams a platform to incubate global impact ventures from New Zealand and contribute to our innovation scene.

It's run in conjunction with Immigration NZ's new Global Impact Visa. EHF will deliver the attraction, selection and integration programme, and Immigration NZ will handle the visas, which allow innovators to work here for three years and eligibility for residency. 

The innovators will be joined each year by 20 Kiwi entrepreneurs and investors, who will participate in workshops, skill-sharing sessions, and other learning opportunities.

Importantly, the innovators can work anywhere in New Zealand that works for them.

The initiative is looking not just for those who want to invest money, but also those with industry experience who want to work alongside innovators, investing their time as well.

So far, the response has been inspiring. Within weeks of advertising, EHF had received more than 350 expressions of interest.

Those at the launch in Wellington last week were, I'm sure, impressed by what they heard.

In particular, it was the tone set by Somalian-born Harvard-educated chief executive Yoseph Ayele, who enthused over New Zealand as a great environment to live and work in, with transparent government and a people with a great attitude.

When you hear people who are lately to our shores talk like that, you have a feeling this initiative is going places.

It's about New Zealand going out to the world and saying we want the brightest to come here and we will help them do what they do best. 

Bringing in these people and spreading them around the country is a new way of doing things, and I'm convinced it will have a halo effect.

Similarly, the initiative announced this week by Wellington Regional Development Agency to fly in overseas IT professionals to match them to prospective employers is trying something new and is to be applauded.

I'm told that by placing one in three, this initiative will make back the total investment, which isn't too bad a return. 

Initiatives like these show New Zealand is prepared to continue to look outward to benefit from immigrants who are prepared to contribute to our values, our land, our transparency, and the way we do things.

At a time when there's a great deal of debate about immigration, and when others are putting up barriers, it's great to see we continue to boldly open ours in the name of progress. Source: stuff

Govt agencies at loggerheads over visa application

Two government agencies are in a legal scrap over an Indian student who claims he did not know his visa application was tainted by fraud.

Navneet Singh was in limbo while he waited to see who would prevail: the Immigration and Protection Tribunal, which granted him an eight month visa; or Immigration New Zealand which said the tribunal exceeded its powers.

Court documents have shown that immigration officials worried that if Mr Singh received the interim visa it would set a bad precedent, contrary to the government's harder-nosed approach to crack down on fraud in the foreign student industry in the last 10 months.

If Immigration won out, it would confirm Mr Singh was liable for deportation.

Mr Singh completed a level five business diploma in April last year, then applied for a second student visa to do level six study.

Meantime, it was revealed that the sponsor - his uncle - and the bank account he declared when applying for his first visa had not been used to pay his tuition or living expenses here, so his application was refused.

He appealed to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal on humanitarian grounds, saying he trusted the education agent in India who submitted the fraudulent bank documents without him knowing.

But the tribunal said he was ultimately responsible for the visa information he provided, and that he did not deny it was wrong.

It rejected his appeal overall on the grounds that his case was not that unusual - for the appeal to succeed there had to be "exceptional circumstances of a humanitarian nature".

He did not have family here and could readily return to life in India, the tribunal said. He had received the level five business diploma he had studied for, it noted.

However, the tribunal directed that he be given an eight-month visa to let him finish his level six business studies course, which he had already paid for.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and Immigration have appealed, arguing the decision was tantamount to the tribunal creating a de facto right of appeal for students.

The next court hearing would be held next month. Source: radionz

Former Christchurch scam marriage broker denied entry to New Zealand for sentencing

A scam marriage broker's efforts to return to Christchurch for her sentencing on fraud charges have been scuppered after immigration refused to let her fly in from Australia.

Li Jun Xue tried to board a flight in Sydney last week, but her lawyer said she was turned around at the airport after Australian authorities were told New Zealand immigration would not let her enter the country because of her conviction – the one she is due to be sentenced for.

Xue, 60, was meant to be sentenced in the Christchurch District Court on Wednesday on a charge of obtaining $35,000 by deception from a Wellington man for a marriage deal involving another woman.

She was convicted at a judge-alone trial before Judge Tom Gilbert in June and was allowed to return to Australia, where she now lives, while she was on bail awaiting sentencing.

The former Christchurch woman has paid the $35,000 reparations to the court, and it has been paid to the victim, and two of her previous sentencing dates were adjourned after she sent messages saying she was too ill to travel.

At the last call of the case in November, Gilbert said an arrest warrant would be issued if she did not turn up a third time.

That warrant would have been issued today, but the case has just been put on hold while immigration decides what will happen next.

Before the scheduled appearance, defence counsel Alister James told the court what had happened. He had a copy of the airline ticket Xue had booked to fly from Sydney.

James pointed out that the conviction that is stopping her entering New Zealand is the one she is due to be sentenced for.

He said his client was told by authorities that she needed a New Zealand visa. She had now applied for one, but immigration told her it would take five weeks to process.

The third sentencing date will be rescheduled to sometime after that.

Xue's trial was told the Wellington man had answered an advertisement offering a 45-year-old Singaporean woman for companionship and possible marriage, which appeared in The Dominion Post on June 26, 2016.

The man contacted Xue who arranged for him to meet "Jessica".

Jessica turned out to be Malaysian and already married. The victim was told a divorce could be arranged if he paid another $10,000.

The police prosecution said Xue knew Jessica was married. They produced a marriage certificate showing Xue and a man described as her husband had been witnesses at Jessica's wedding to an Australian man in Wollongong, Australia, on September 21, 2012.

Gilbert convicted Xue after hearing evidence from the victim, bank officers and a police witness. He found Xue had received some or possibly all of the $35,000 proceeds from the scam.

The victim told the court he was devastated to discover that Jessica's immigration status was not what Xue had told him and then that she was already married.

Source: stuff

NZ's mixed attitudes to immigration revealed

New Zealanders feel positive about immigration compared to other countries, but most do not want an increase in numbers, two surveys suggest.

In one international survey, carried out by Ipsos and published in September (PDF, 1.6MB), 42 percent of the 500 New Zealanders surveyed thought there were too many immigrants.

However, 47 percent thought immigration had a positive effect, the second-highest result of the 23 countries surveyed.

A total of 59 percent of the New Zealanders surveyed felt the number of immigrants moving to the country had increased "a lot" in the last five years, and more than half felt immigrants were pressuring public services and did not want an increase in immigration numbers.

At 51 percent, New Zealanders topped the international list for the proportion of respondents who believed immigration was good for the economy.

They were also the most concerned of any non-EU country about the effects of Brexit on Britain and the EU.

A report by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), published in July (PDF, 3.5MB), suggested only 22 percent of people thought there should be fewer immigrants.

When respondents were told of the government's immigration targets that rose to 31 percent, with respondents citing concerns about the impact on jobs, housing and infrastructure.

That report also suggested New Zealand-born residents and immigrants were mixing less, with fewer people reporting friendship groups outside their home country.

It found a majority thought the media cast foreigners in a negative light, with 29 percent of respondents believing Chinese migrants were singled out by the media, an increase from 4 percent from the same survey in 2011.

The margin of error for the MBIE survey of 2000 people was +/- 2.5 percentage points.

The margin of error for the New Zealand part of the Ipsos online poll was +/- 5 percentage points.

Article Source: radionz

New Zealand visa changes: The first of many new visa restrictions for SA immigration?

Cape Town - The recent announcement of the changes to New Zealand's visa regulations for travelling to South Africa may not be the last change SA's Department of Home Affairs will be making to SA's relatively open immigration policy. 

SA's Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba on Tuesday, 13 December 2016, announced that travellers from New Zealand will have to obtain a visa to enter South Africa. 

The announcement came after New Zealand, in October this year, announced new regulations requiring South African travellers to purchase a visa before entering. 

"Reciprocity is a national principle," Gigaba said on Tuesday. "Therefore, in view of the afore-mentioned, a decision was taken to reciprocate by withdrawing the visa exemption which New Zealand passport holders enjoy," he said. 

But New Zealand's new visa requirement might just be the tip of the iceberg. Gigaba also alluded that the Department of Home Affairs will impose similar, more stringent visa requirement for other counties in future. 

"We have noted that in recent times, a number of countries have imposed visa restrictions on South African passport holders. And in the past, we have not reciprocated due to reasons including tourism considerations particularly in the light of the new immigration regulations that we are implementing," he says. 

He also said that Home Affairs has noted inconveniences experienced by South Africa citizens given the visa restrictions imposed on us, as well as the reputational risks of being perceived as unsafe by some countries. 

"I have therefore directed the department to look closely at the decisions of these countries and advise accordingly whether or not South Africa should reciprocate also in these instances," Gigaba says. 

He insists that is not the department's policy to deter foreign visitors or to reduce the flow of tourists, business people and other travellers to our country. 

"Immigration, particularly for development, is high on our agenda," Gigaba says, and so also the current endeavour to comprehensively review the international migration policy.

More: traveller24