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Speaker 1: To a migration battle. The parents of a six year

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Speaker 1: old boy with Down syndrome are fighting to keep him

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Speaker 1: in the country. The South African couples say that when

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Speaker 1: they arrived in New Zealand two years ago when he

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Speaker 1: was four, they were honest about the fact that their

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Speaker 1: son had Down syndrome. But now they've been told he

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Speaker 1: has to leave the country as soon as possible. The

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Speaker 1: boy's mother, so Nandi Heldenace joins us now high saw Nundi. Hi. Ever,

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Speaker 1: why have you been told he has to leave? For

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Speaker 1: what reason?

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Speaker 2: Ah? So we didn't as of recently received a reason

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Speaker 2: the latest decline that we got. But initially when he

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Speaker 2: was the client for his student visa in twenty twenty four,

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Speaker 2: the reason was that he qualifies for os funding. For

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Speaker 2: what for OARS funding? So that's the funding that children

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Speaker 2: get in school that helps them if you have special needs.

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Speaker 2: It sort of covers the costs of the learning assistance

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Speaker 2: and speech therapists and all of that.

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Speaker 1: So essentially he is greater than a normal cost for

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Speaker 1: a child and therefore he costs country, so he has

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Speaker 1: to leave. Is that about it?

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Speaker 2: Do you think that's about it? Yes?

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Speaker 1: Okay? Know why did the Immigration Minister or the Associate

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Speaker 1: Immigration Minister have to get.

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Speaker 2: Involved because his original student visa was declined. So the

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Speaker 2: next step in the legal process is to submit a

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Speaker 2: Section sixty one, which we also did last year that

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Speaker 2: was also declined by Immigration. And then the next step

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Speaker 2: onto that is where you ask the minister to intervene.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so you basically appeal to him. He has to

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Speaker 1: make the decision. Then, yes, Now do you think this

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Speaker 1: decision is fair or not?

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Speaker 2: I cannot say that. It is from a mom that

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Speaker 2: sees Leandre daily and see the growth that he has

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Speaker 2: since we landed in New Zealand, all the support that

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Speaker 2: he has received from his preschool, which didn't cost the

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Speaker 2: government anything right up until where he is now. The

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Speaker 2: growth has been tremendous. What Leandre can do now compare

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Speaker 2: to what he did when we landed of six two

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Speaker 2: years later. So you expect a child to grow, but

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Speaker 2: the rate at which he was learning in South Africa

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Speaker 2: compared to the rate he's learning, Yeah, it's such a

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Speaker 2: big change. And how we've seen him learn things and

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Speaker 2: new things and want to explore on stuff. It's amazing.

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Speaker 1: This is a really harsh question to ask you, So

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Speaker 1: I apologize in advance, but I think it comes down

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Speaker 1: to this, is he ever going to be contributing more

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Speaker 1: to New Zealand in financially, like in terms of tax

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Speaker 1: than he takes out?

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Speaker 2: Oh? I don't know. See that's the thing with children,

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Speaker 2: you never know what their future will be like. There's

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Speaker 2: a possibility that Lejandre could make a significant contribution. There's

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Speaker 2: daily reports where you read of people with DOWN syndrome

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Speaker 2: that works in cafes, that owns businesses because their family

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Speaker 2: is in a position where they can give them that.

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Speaker 2: And that is the dream that we have for Leandre.

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Speaker 2: We want to invest into him so that he can

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Speaker 2: pretend live a life where he can contribute to a

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Speaker 2: country without his parents.

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Speaker 1: So in the cases where where kids with downs and

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Speaker 1: from grow up to be you know net benefits to

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Speaker 1: the country that they live in, is that because their

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Speaker 1: parents are financially supportive, basically they have sufficient financial security

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Speaker 1: to ensure that that child has a future that has

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Speaker 1: financially secured themselves.

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Speaker 2: Well, sometimes, are you guys being that family per family? Currently? No?

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Speaker 1: Will you ever? I mean, I mean fair enough, because

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Speaker 1: you're my recent migrants. You've only been here a couple

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Speaker 1: of years and it takes a while to get started

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Speaker 1: in the country. But giving your occupations, will you ever

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Speaker 1: be financially secure enough to put him in that position?

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Speaker 2: The plan is yes. So we have our whole plan

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Speaker 2: set out in the time from that, we've got our

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Speaker 2: work visas and it runs to twenty twenty nine. You know,

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Speaker 2: the plan is there to apply for residency. And there

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Speaker 2: was a few bumps in the road with these declines

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Speaker 2: that sort of extended the time line. But we had

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Speaker 2: a very clear plan when we landed, and that plan

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Speaker 2: is still in place. It has been delayed a little

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Speaker 2: bit now because of the speed pumps, but that and

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Speaker 2: is still fully in place, and we still have a

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Speaker 2: goal and we're going to reach it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I can imagine you guys must feel reasonably

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Speaker 1: I mean, what's a synonym for gyp, But you must

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Speaker 1: feel a little bit jip.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: You come to the country, you think it's going to

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Speaker 1: be okay, and suddenly things change on you. That can't

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Speaker 1: feel great.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was sort of a punch in the guts

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Speaker 2: initially when we read about the acceptable standard of health

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Speaker 2: before we came over, and it all pointed towards medical

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Speaker 2: and Leujundre has no medical conditions, so we were so focused.

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Speaker 2: We had all the reports you know, from his pediatrician

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Speaker 2: in South Africa, speech language therapists, occupational therapists. We had

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Speaker 2: all of these reports when we came over to say

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Speaker 2: that no, le Hundre has no medical conditions, he won't

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Speaker 2: be a burden. And then all of a sudden when

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Speaker 2: we landed, we found out that the ASH policy also

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Speaker 2: covers education and unfortunately, the only way we would be

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Speaker 2: able to get around getting him a student visa was

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Speaker 2: if we proved that he didn't have Down syndrome or

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Speaker 2: that he did not have an intellectual disability at all,

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Speaker 2: and that's impossible.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, we.

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Speaker 2: Were a bit gut punched at the moment. You know,

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Speaker 2: we just didn't expect that it would be education wise

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Speaker 2: as well. And yeah, then we just sort of had

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Speaker 2: to regroup and look at it how we're going to

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Speaker 2: approach it again.

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Speaker 1: All right, So Nandi, thank you very much for having

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Speaker 1: a chat. I appreciate it. So Nandi held a nice

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Speaker 1: mother of the sex year old boy who has Down syndrome.

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