Family reunion is a fundamental human right and essential for one's mental health. Many hard-working individuals in New Zealand who cannot unite with parents suffer from tremendous mental health disasters. Especially for families with only one child, children far away in New Zealand are the parents' only family and spiritual sustenance. For these families, living in New Zealand today is an unsolvable dilemma. According to the current New Zealand Immigration policy, you can only choose between a country where you have lived, studied, and worked for many years and your patents. Suppose you want to be with your parents and enable them to enjoy family happiness. In that case, the only reliable way is to leave New Zealand.

My father passed away, and I was the only child in the family. My mother had no choice but left New Zealand three months ago because of the expiration of her visitor visa. In the pandemic era, our next reunion was nowhere in sight. This is a big blow to both her and me. I could not stop thinking of her everyday, and this emotion affect my work,study and life dramatically. Out of trust in the New Zealand government, my husband and I have been working diligently. This year we finally reached the income standard for parental reunion. Still, the application for this visa has been suspended. There is small hope of being selected even if submitted (Most people who submitted 5 years ago get no feedback yet). The 2021 one-off  Resident visa temporarily releasing enormous pressure on many individuals and businesses has left us very disappointed and feeling abandoned. We give a lot without any return, even without an accurate response. 

Here I call on the New Zealand government to issue a new type of visa. This type of visa only needs to ensure that parents of NZ residents/citizens can live in New Zealand permanently without providing pensions and other benefits. We don’t need any benefits and pensions. What we want is just to be with the person who raised us. Also, I hope that the government can give all families that meet the income criteria the opportunity to apply for this type of visa and speed up the application process, instead of restricting the annual quota based on ruthless selection. 

Please sign and share this petition to generate awareness for people in this situation. Please do not do us apart when we are still alive.