STAFF REPORTER

In a new blog entitled WHAT NEW VISA RULES MEAN TO US, SAJR Online editor Ant Katz (pictured) writes how he was having trouble getting answers to how the new visa and immigration regulations will influence SA Jewry and Israelis in SA, or wanting to come to SA.

“My questions were being bounced around between media and technical practitioners at DOHA and, in the end, it required my getting lucky and catching the Deputy Director General of Immigration Services at DOHA, Jackie Mckay, on his cell phone between meetings,” posts Ant.

The questions

• In the case of foreign citizens who currently have work permits or study visas, could they be affected on re-application?
• What will the effect be on, say, a specialised Jewish Rabbi or Judaic teacher seeking a work permit in SA if there are not enough specialised people to perform these duties? (An example would be a Mehadrin Commission shochet.)
• With a relatively small SA Jewish population, further reduced by those who want to marry a person of the same sect, many SA Jews (both SA citizens and non-citizen residents) seek spouses overseas. Will this practice be affected by the denial of spousal visas?
• Will the new requirements with regard to marriages affect people NOT seeking immigration or spousal rights? If an SA citizen who, say, has been living and working in Israel or the US and plans to marry a foreign citizen in SA for family reasons, would they be able to? Nobody at Home Affairs below Mckay was able to answer this.

Read Ant’s blog, WHAT NEW VISA RULES MEAN TO US, to see the DDG’s answers to these questions.