A mother’s decade-long struggle to bring her son, who has Down syndrome, to live with her in New Zealand has ended with the teenager gaining residency.
It’s a decision the Christchurch chef, who has worked in New Zealand for 10 years, says will give her boy a “new life”.
The Herald first covered the case of Prince and her son Jap Sahib last month, with Immigration New Zealand (INZ) saying at the time the case was being considered by Associate Immigration Minister Chris Penk.
Penk has now told the Herald he has approved Jap’s residency.
“I have carefully considered all submissions relating to the case of Jap Sahib and have made the decision to grant the individual a resident visa,” Penk told the Herald.
Prince said she was overwhelmed by the news.
“I am feeling so good and happy that I don’t have words. Thank you. You guys have given a new life to me and my son,” she said.
The breakthrough in the case follows years of campaigning and legal wrangling by Prince and those who advocated on her behalf.
Jap first came to New Zealand on a visitor visa with his mother in 2014 when he was five years old.
Subsequent efforts by Prince to secure a student visa for her son were rejected, as were applications for visitor visas, and he was asked to leave the country.
An appeal to the independent Immigration & Protection Tribunal in late 2016 was also unsuccessful.
A last-ditch effort to get New Zealand residency for Jap was mounted by Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March, who asked Penk to intervene in the case in May this year.
Menéndez March said he was “stoked” with the outcome.
Prince, who already has New Zealand residency, has been working as a chef in Christchurch’s Harewood and at Maruia Hot Springs in the Lewis Pass national reserve.
As she continued to work and fight for her son to join her in New Zealand, Jap was cared for in India by his grandmother.
Prince told the Herald Jap’s father, also in India, has longstanding alcohol addiction issues.
Aine Kelly Costello from Migrants Against the Acceptable Standard of Health Aotearoa (MAASHA) said she was “overjoyed” with the positive outcome and “beyond relieved” that Penk intervened.
“Prince...has been fighting this battle for a decade including eight years living separated from Jap Sahib. You can’t get those childhood years back,” she said.
Kelly-Costello remained critical of the “unjust” immigration policy which thwarted Prince’s attempts to bring her son here for so long.
Immigration New Zealand (INZ) has a policy called the acceptable standard of health (ASH), which is used to decide if an individual can work or study in New Zealand.
The policy considers health criteria like whether an applicant could add “significant cost to, or demands on, New Zealand’s health services”.
Immigration officials also consider what impact granting residency to someone with a disability would have on New Zealand’s education system.
Prince had always maintained she had the means to provide the additional health and education support her son needed.
Kelly Costello said it was unfair Prince and Jap had to jump through so many hoops, and then ministerial intervention once all other avenues were exhausted – a time-consuming and expensive process.
“At every stage, you have to prove your own or your disabled family member’s worth, which is a degrading process,” she said.
Menéndez March said disabled people should not face discrimination and the ASH policy should be axed.
“While many parents with disabled children continue facing separation and discrimination, the Government has shown us that where there is a will there is a way, and we call on Chris Penk and Erica Stanford to stop splitting so many migrant families apart,” he said.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) has previously raised concerns about INZ’s ASH policy. New Zealand is a signatory to the UNCRPD, which says member countries need to prevent disability discrimination.
Michael Morrah is a senior investigative reporter/team leader at the Herald. He won News Journalist of the Year at the 2025 Voyager Media Awards and has twice been named reporter of the year at the NZ Television Awards. He has been a broadcast journalist for 20 years and joined the Herald’s video team in July 2024.