Rules Are For Breaking
I comment a lot on the relevance of “rules” in terms of the New Zealand immigration process and mostly because they are the back-bone as to how the whole system works. Migrants are basically pushed through a blender of criteria, rules and policy, and the slices that fall out, should resemble a visa of some description.
However it is easy to overlook, that for most people, their knowledge of how these rules actually work will be limited to tick boxes in an online form or if you go old-school, questions on a paper-based application. Some migrants are brave enough to try and read Immigration New Zealand’s website to see if they can decipher how the process works, but very few applicants find themselves in amongst the weeds of the formal Operational Manual (most wouldn’t know what that is).
Funnily enough, the most important of the process, the thing that defines if you are going to be successful or otherwise is usually the least understood. INZ attempts (poorly) to simplify these in to it’s online marketing, however that often creates more problems than it solves. Our immigration instructions (the rules) are complex, lengthy and structured in such a way that individual interpretation, plays a really important (and often inconsistent) part.
So to clear away the fog, and demystify the process a little, we are going to explain how the various different rules work, how much discretion there is in each of those sets of rules and how sometimes, a successful outcome can be achieved, even when the rules would suggest a very different conclusion.
Rules or Laws?
The Matrix was and still is one my favorite movies, well at least the first one - the sequels were another story. If you have seen it, then it probably left you with the same “what just happened” feeling that I had, which is ironically similar to the feeling you have when you try and wade your way through visa policy.
"Do not try and bend the spoon, that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth...there is no spoon. Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."
Comparing this to our visa system, even if something appears to resemble a spoon, INZ would easily try and convince you that what you are holding is in fact a fork - which isn’t really there at all.
The visa rule book saga starts of course with the Immigration Act and the Immigration Regulations, which are the legal instruments that govern our visa system, however these wont tell you how to apply for a visa. They do set out the key framework for what a visa is, who can issue one, what happens when yours expires and a 478 other relevant clauses, but to work out whether you qualify you need the manual. Regulations sit alongside the Act and provide more specific details in terms of how the Act is delivered.
But that is not where the magic happens…for that we turn to the Operational Manual, which is not a set of laws, but instead a series of documents, that provide direction to Immigration New Zealand as to how to deliver the immigration wishes of the current Government administration.
Continues…
To read the full article, click the link below.
