Permanent residency

The Refugees Amendment Act would lengthen the amount of time a refugee has resided in the country before being allowed to apply for certification to apply for permanent residence from the current five years to ten years. The UNHCR recommends that the period of time before recognizing a permanent status should be five years. In our comments, we recommended that the time period remain at five years, especially considering the protracted determination process which means many remain on asylum temporary permits for many years, in order to qualify for application to permanent residency.