Restaurant family can stay
Ukrainians on verge of being forced out of land they love before year’s visa granted
AUkrainian family who own a popular Auckland restaurant are thrilled to have received a reprieve from the threat of deportation after the intervention of Associate Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi.
Nataliya Shchetkova, her husband Alex Derecha and their five children are allowed to stay for another 12 months, which will allow them to apply for residency again — which they intend to do.
“I can’t say it’s a 100 per cent victory but if you compare refusal to a 12-month work visa it is a win,” Shchetkova said. “We want to stay, we’re happy to be here and we want to keep doing what we’re doing now.”
Shchetkova said she and her husband would not have time to celebrate but her young twins had planned a beach picnic to mark the occasion.
“We are so happy. My children are going to celebrate; it’s the school holidays tomorrow. When I was leaving for work I heard they were arranging to have a picnic tomorrow morning with their school friends.”
The couple, who run La Vista restaurant in St Heliers, have been living on a knife-edge after exhausting almost all their options in a bid to stay in New Zealand, their home since 2013. Their entrepreneur visa runs out on July 1.
They renewed their visa twice, the maximum number of times, and applied for residency but it was declined because Immigration NZ said their business did not add significant value to the country. An appeal also failed.
The last option was to write to Faafoi. A petition signed by 15,000 people also urged Faafoi to intervene and a rally was held for the family.
Shchetkova also appeared before a parliamentary committee to plead the case. La Vista had a $1.6 million turnover in the last financial year and employs 26 staff, 17 of them fulltime.
Act leader David Seymour, who has been supporting the family, said yesterday Faafoi had written the family to tell them they could to stay another 12 months, which would allow them to reapply for residency. He said New Zealanders rallied behind the Shchetkovas because they could sense the deep injustice of the situation.
“The family made New Zealand their home six years ago, built a successful business employing 26 people, and now have strong connections in their community. As a country, we must be welcoming of hardworking and entrepreneurial migrants,” he said.