{"id":375424,"date":"2026-04-12T03:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T03:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/375424\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T03:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T03:44:08","slug":"samoan-woman-granted-residency-after-taking-over-childrens-care-when-her-sister-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/375424\/","title":{"rendered":"Samoan woman granted residency after taking over children\u2019s care when her sister died"},"content":{"rendered":"

Her application for residency status was turned down, so she took her case to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Daily routine described<\/p>\n

Her name has been redacted from the tribunal\u2019s published decision in her case, which described her daily routine as a substitute parent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe appellant wakes up the children and gets them ready for school, prepares their daily meals, does all manner of household cleaning jobs and chores, attends to the grocery shopping, gets the children ready for bed each night, and takes them to church every Sunday,\u201d the decision said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tumuaki [principal] of a primary school attended by some of the children states that the appellant not only attends to the day-to-day parenting of the children, but she is an engaged and valued member of the school community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The school told the tribunal that the woman played a \u201cvital role\u201d in the care and well-being of the children.<\/p>\n

She displayed a \u201cdeep sense of commitment\u201d to them and promoted family values.<\/p>\n

A 24-year-old brother, who financially supports the family, said the children saw the woman as a \u201csecond mother\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tribunal can easily see why,\u201d tribunal member Matthew Martin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe evidence shows that the appellant has unfailingly devoted herself to raising these five young children following the death of her older sister, who was to be their primary caregiver.\u201d<\/p>\n

The youngest child, who is a New Zealand citizen, is the woman\u2019s natural daughter but was in her sister\u2019s care after being formally adopted by another member of the family.<\/p>\n

The woman\u2019s temporary visa to be in New Zealand expired in December last year.<\/p>\n

She applied for residency status as a \u201cdependent child\u201d of a New Zealand citizen.<\/p>\n

However, she was ruled ineligible because she was a year too old and because her father, although a New Zealand citizen, lived in Samoa<\/a>, where he was committed to church ministry.<\/p>\n

The tribunal found that Immigration New Zealand had no option but to decline her residency application under its criteria.<\/p>\n

\"ImmigrationImmigration Minister Erica Stanford has granted the woman residency. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

This meant the woman was eligible to remain only if the Minister of Immigration, Erica Stanford, approved her application under a \u201cspecial circumstances\u201d exception to the rules.<\/p>\n

The tribunal found that the woman had no other direct or immediate pathway to resident status.<\/p>\n

She could keep lodging applications under a Samoan quota scheme, but these are decided by ballot, with no guarantee of success.<\/p>\n

However, the tribunal found it would be contrary to the best interests of the children, and her 24-year-old brother, if she had to return to Samoa.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would seriously undermine the stability of this currently stable and well-functioning family unit that is dependent on the appellant\u2019s ongoing presence in New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tribunal recommended that she be considered a \u201cspecial circumstances\u201d case and be allowed to stay.<\/p>\n

A note added to the tribunal decision said the minister decided in February that the woman should be granted residency.<\/p>\n

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME\u2019s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Her application for residency status was turned down, so she took her case to the Immigration and Protection…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,536,4749,6179,19196,1364,111,43,139,69,1523,29592,20153,27886,4758,1316,1354],"class_list":{"0":"post-375424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-care","10":"tag-childrens","11":"tag-died","12":"tag-granted","13":"tag-her","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-newzealand","17":"tag-nz","18":"tag-over","19":"tag-residency","20":"tag-samoan","21":"tag-sister","22":"tag-taking","23":"tag-when","24":"tag-woman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}