Deported Indian students to be allowed back into New Zealand
Michael Morrah
The students took refuge in a church in 2017. Now they've been allowed back in. Credits: Newshub
After a struggle with Immigration lasting almost three years, a group of Indian students accused of fraud and kicked out of the country have been granted a reprieve.
Four students, who took refuge in a church in 2017 when told they'd be deported, have been given new visas and informed they can come back for 12 months.
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"I can't express in a single word, but it's a very happy moment," former student Manoj Narra told Newshub from India.
It's a decision that delights those who campaigned on their behalf.
"This is huge - gigantic I would say, especially as we've been fighting for the past three years and the students have been waiting," Migrant Workers Association spokesperson Anu Kaloti says.
The students were originally told their applications contained fake bank loan documents and as a result deportation notices were issued.
But throughout, they've maintained it was their agents who falsified the material - some students never even took out loans.
Lawyer Alastair McClymont represented many of the students, including Narra, and says it's disappointing that it's taken this long.
"What this is an example of is that the Government is now starting to realise that these people are victims of exploitation," he says.
McClymont thinks there are potentially thousands of others who are also victims of agent fraud.
"It's just the beginning because there are a massive number of students still stuck here in NZ, or who have been sent out of the country, who are in exactly the same situation," he says.
McClymont says that without relentless advocacy work on the students' behalf, the exploitation would have simply been swept under the carpet.
However the Associate Minister won't say yet if other deportees could also be allowed back.