#that last line lol lmao
12-year-old Filipino girl barred from living with her parents in New Zealand due to her autism
Arianna Alfonzo has lived in the Philippines apart from her father while he has worked in New Zealand for the past six years. In 2018, Arianna’s application for a visitor visa was rejected after it was determined that she did not meet “acceptable standards of health.”
New Zealand’s immigration policies state that an individual with a disability or illness is unable to reside in the country if they require health services that cost more than $41,000 over five years.
While Arianna’s father works as a construction industry worker in Auckland, the 12-year-old and her mother, Gail Alfonzo, have continued living in the Philippines as they fight to get Arianna accepted into New Zealand.
“It’s been very difficult for us,” Gail told The New Zealand Herald. “She needs both parents.”
Gail also said that she and her husband have spent thousands on consulting specialists and lawyers to help approve Arianna’s visa and prove that they would not be a burden to New Zealand’s economy.
“We are in our early 40s and we are very sure both of us will contribute [to] the growth and economy of New Zealand,” Gail wrote in a public plea. […]
In 2014, a woman by the name of Juliana Carvalho was similarly denied entry into New Zealand due to her condition as a parapelgic and having lupus. It took six years for her to be approved for residency after having spent time in New Zealand under a student visa. She described the policy as destroying “people’s lives’’ and causing “humiliation.”
Carvalho submitted a petition with 35,000 signatures to change the disability immigration policy in 2021; however, the New Zealand government stated that it had no plans to revise the current policy.
“The current settings are not specifically discriminatory against disabled people, but instead focus on assessing the public health impact an individual will have,” New Zealand’s government stated.
