Student hides bad visa news from family
The ‘‘shame and embarrassment’’ of being deported is too much for one Indian student, who is keeping it all from his family until he turns up on their doorstep.
Rahul Reddy, 29, completed an IT course in Auckland in July and planned to stay on and work for a year on a post-study open work visa, but when he applied he was told there were issues with his original student visa and he faced deportation.
For three months Reddy has been in Auckland with no job and fighting to stay while his family have continued to send him money, completely unaware of his situation.
He is one of about 40 students facing deportation.
While they are going through an appeal process, Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce says ‘‘most of them will go home’’.
Fraudulent agents operating in India are not new but the issue will be a talking point when Prime Minister John Key heads there on Monday.
While Key said he won’t be raising it, he expected it would be discussed. ’’All I’d say is that in the end we have to have a system that is robust and fair and that means people follow the rules and if we don’t, that means we’re sending a message to these agents, including in India, that if you flout the rules you get away with it.’’
Foreign students have been in the spotlight as politicians debate on how to deal with record levels of net migration.
According to the latest figures from Statistics NZ, 70,000 more people arrived in New Zealand than departed in the year to September 2016. Student visas made up 20 per cent of the 125,600 migrant arrivals - another new annual record - during the same period.
Documents obtained by Labour under the Official Information Act show Immigration New Zealand’s Mumbai office has recorded a ‘‘significant rise’’ in financial fraud, with a total of 640 fraud cases detected as of August - up from 75 in April - involving nearly 300 agents.
There were student fraud cases at 60 different education providers in New Zealand, including 47 cases at a single institution.
A crackdown on fake bank documents had led to new types of fraud, including ‘‘rent-an-uncle’’ loans where students claimed their finances came from family members who could not easily be verified.
Thirty new agents were applying for registration in India each month, although they were treated as ‘‘untrusted’’ until proven otherwise, with nearly 80 per cent eventually declined.
Joyce says India is ‘‘undoubtedly the most difficult market for international education for pretty much all the English-speaking countries’’.
‘‘I’d be particularly concerned if it was just New Zealand having these experiences but actually the UK, Canada, Australia . . . they have the same challenges in India,’’ Joyce said.
The Government is cracking down on dodgy agents with both legislation and a drive by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) to put particular agents on notice.
The first letters from NZQA to agents who have had a high number of visas declined for their students have been sent out this week.
Reddy says it is the agents and immigration officials who approved his visa that are to blame.
’’I’m frustrated because it comes down to the agent and the immigration officer and them not checking the documents properly.’’
Getting deported will be a permanent mark on his passport and will prevent him getting a decent job back in India, Reddy says.
‘‘My family have no idea. They have spent all their lifetime savings on me and if I had to tell them I was being deported I don’t know what I’d say. It’s embarrassing . . . in 42 days I could be on my way home,’’ he said.
Joyce disputes the students involved did not play a part in their demise, saying they signed a declaration that the information they submitted was accurate.
‘‘We do have to have a system that says, sorry, but if you do end up in New Zealand and you’re not supposed to be here and you’ve done it wrong then we do go through a process where quite a few go home.’’ - Fairfax NZ