On the relaxation of visa for visiting relatives by Irish Immigration Bureau

Immigration Ireland urges relaxation of visas for immigrant family members.

On June 28th, the Irish Immigration Management Committee released a report entitled "Experience of Family Reunion in Ireland", focusing on the lack of provisions and clauses in the Irish legal system to help immigrants solve family reunion. Taking into account international humanitarian and other factors, the immigration authorities suggested that the Ministry of Justice redraft the relevant provisions in the immigration law to allow the families of citizens of non-EU member States with legal residence status to visit relatives or live in Ireland.

According to the Irish New Island Weekly, a China woman who has lived in Ireland for seven years introduced her life in Ireland far from her hometown relatives. Zheng Xie, 35, is the only daughter of her parents. Zheng Xie, who lives in Clontarf, Dublin, came to Ireland like other immigrants when the IT industry in Ireland needed talents most. After coming to Ireland, she married an Irish young man, but in Ireland, she could not reunite with her parents who were thousands of miles away.

Because the Irish government can't get the visa for parents to stay in Ireland for a long time, every time the husband and wife go back to visit relatives, the two old people are suffering from the pain of leaving their loved ones.

Zheng Xie said in an interview that parents who are far away from China can only get a three-month tourist visa to visit themselves in Ireland. Whether they can get a tourist visa every time depends entirely on the mood of the visa officer. Ireland's visa system has no chapter. In view of the present situation, Zheng Xie and her husband once considered emigrating to other countries, where she might be allowed to live with her parents.

A spokesman for the Irish Immigration Investigation Committee said that immigrants from non-EU countries living in Ireland are most concerned about family reunion and receive the largest number of complaints.

According to EU regulations, wives and children of citizens of EU member States who come to work in Ireland can automatically obtain long-term residence status in Ireland and apply for social welfare. However, in Ireland, there is no law on how to deal with family reunion of citizens of non-EU member States living in Ireland. According to the calculation of the Ministry of Justice, about 4,000 citizens from non-EU member countries request and apply to the immigration authorities for family reunion every year. A new report shows that the Irish government refuses thousands of applicants to visit relatives in Ireland every year.