Village wants Kiwi to stay

The Press - 26 February 2008

A tiny English village is rallying around a New Zealander who faces deportation for overstaying his visa.

Kerry Hurst, 32, has become a cause celebre in the northern England village of Kirkby Stephen where he has been a popular sports coach and helped set up a youth support group.

About 600 Kirkby Stephen locals -- about half the Cumbrian village's population -- have rallied around Hurst demanding he be allowed to stay.

They say it is outrageous he is being forced out while foreign rapists and murderers are allowed to stay.

Local MP David Maclean lodged a last-minute appeal but the Border and Immigration Agency last week upheld the deportation decision, asking for Hurst to leave by the end of April or be forced to go.

Hurst's plight has made headlines in English and Australian newspapers. The British Home Office alleges Hurst submitted false bank details in an application to remain indefinitely in Britain, an Australian newspaper said.

Hurst worked as an accounts area manager for a bakery in the town, which was was bought out by another company and changed its name. Hurst failed to alert the Home Office of the company's name change, which violated his visa.

Maclean said Hurst's threatened deportation was part of a renewed campaign by the Home Office against Australians and New Zealanders. From February 29 -- this Friday -- it is expected New Zealand expatriates will be subject to a new "no-switching" rule.

New Zealanders used to be able to switch from a working holiday visa to a skilled migrant visa while they were still in Britain.

But the chief executive of Wellington-based recruitment company Global Career Link Simon Swallow said this was set to change.

"What they're talking about now is that they'll stop switching. You would have to come back to New Zealand and apply for your highly skilled migrant visa from New Zealand."

Skilled migrant visas usually took around six months to get approved, A working holiday visa allows a Commonwealth citizens aged between 17 and 30 to travel to Britain for an extended holiday of up to two years. A highly skilled migrant visa also lasts only two years but can be renewed if migrants can show they are in work.

Swallow said New Zealanders going on their OE needed to get real about the changes. "These things aren't a right. In the past, a lot of New Zealanders and Australians have just expected that it's some sort of a birthright for them."