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The Hong Kong Immigration Department are not especially receptive to what can appear to be family reunion via the back door…

Can you use the Foreign Domestic Helper visa to employ your mother in Hong Kong?

QUESTION

Hello,

My wife and I are on work visas in Hong Kong and are expecting a baby in the Autumn.

My wife would like to keep working, and wants to bring her mother over (she is from Central America) to look after the baby, possibly for up to a year.

Her mother would only be eligible for a 30-day visitor visa.

Could we employ her as a domestic helper?

Do we have any other options?

Thanks!

ANSWER

Whilst it’s a perfectly logical conclusion to draw that it would make sense to employ your mother or your mother in law as a foreign domestic helper sponsored by you in Hong Kong, unfortunately such an approach won’t hold water with the Immigration Department for a number of reasons. One set of reasons that are specific to the nature of the foreign domestic helper visa and the second reason relates to the nationality of your mother dealing with the nationality issue.

First, the foreign domestic helper visa has been constructed in Hong Kong by the Immigration Department as a result of a series of bilateral negotiations between a variety of different countries that are prepared to allow their nationals to come to Hong Kong to work under very strict conditions as foreign domestic helpers. And principally in this regard strict conditions are relating to the protection of  the interests of the nationals that are going to be coming to do the work under foreign domestic helper visas. So, if you’re from, or your wife’s mother is from a country that does not have such a bilaterally negotiated arrangements in place, then citizens of that country cannot participate in the foreign domestic helper programme, unfortunately.

So given that there are no countries in Central America today that have got a bilaterally negotiated arrangement in place, the foreign domestic helper visa will not be available to her, end of story, unfortunately. But in terms of what the Immigration Department do when they receive applications from very close relatives, effectively they look at these applications with a very let’s say cynical set of eyes because whilst it makes perfect sense to want to have a mother or a mother in law in Hong Kong taking care of a new grandchild, especially during the first year, effectively the Immigration Department will see this as an application for family reunion by the back door because there’s non-permanent residents seeking to have their mother, or a parent physically present in Hong Kong with them, that means that you precluded from  sponsoring such a dependent visa for that would be the visa type that you would normally use because the dependent visa for a parent normally requires the sponsor to be a permanent identity card holder and the parent to be over 60 years of age and with clear proof of dependency.

And in your circumstances this is obviously not going to apply. So the Immigration Department, for another reason are not going to be receptive to an application for a foreign domestic helper visa notwithstanding the fact that there is an expectation that there is going to be an arm’s length commercial arrangement between the two parties in relation to the provision of employment services. Clearly, where you have a family member that’s going to be providing those services, then this is not going to be a typical arm’s length commercial arrangement. So now that we’ve kind of sort of buried the idea that the foreign domestic help of visa might work for you in your circumstances, what are the other options that are available to you?

Well, you could make, and I would suggest that you do this in any event, make an application for an entry visa for your mother in law to come and join you for an extended period of time on the strength of the fact that you are having a child, and it would be exceptionally useful to you to be able to have your mother physically present in Hong Kong for a few months at least to be able to help out with the new child rearing duties. And you do this by making a visitor visa application, as I say, on an entry visa that is not relying on the 30 days that you are granted upon arrival at the airport, but actually setting out in detail all the circumstances that are giving rise to you seeking to sponsor an extended visitor visa for your mother in law.

You may get a three-month limit of stay depending on how the Immigration Department respond to the application. Additionally, you could conceptually make such an entra visa application for her let her arrive and enter on that perhaps, 60 or 90 day limit of stay, depending what the immigration department give you.

And then at the end of that limit of stay, she could make an exit and then reenter again and get another 30 days, and in that intervening period you could make another application for another entry visa, and again get another 60 or another 90 days, and at the end of that limit of stay you could make another exit and possibly do that twice more before you get to the kind of magic number that the immigration department hold to be quite dear.

And that is, a visitor should not be spending more than half of their time in Hong Kong over the course of a twelve month given period. So I think you’re probably going to be able to finagle possibly six or seven months as visitor visa status for your mother in law in those circumstances.

Not exactly twelve months I appreciate, but if you work the system in a good and logical way and set out all the facts surrounding the need for the need for extended visitor status for your mother and the fact that you’re clearly going to be responsible for her health and welfare while she’s here, I think you’ll find that you’ll end up getting a reasonable amount of time that will allow you to be together during these important months, whether you get a full year or not.

Difficult to say, I would suspect probably not. You’ll be testing the Immigration Department’s patience somewhat, if you made a third or a fourth application for an intra visa on that basis; but you know, the Immigration Department appreciate that this is an important time for you and wonder, actually, what’s wrong with having your mother in Hong Kong, helping you raise your new grandchild in the early months of his or her arrival in Hong Kong.

It’s just a matter of working the process, setting out all the facts, allowing the Immigration Department to understand what the reasons are for this extended period of stay in Hong Kong as a visitor, and I think you’ll find that, all things considered, as far as they’re able to help you, they probably will do so.

Okay, I’ve appended the link to the visitor visa information on the Hong Kong visa handbook that will help you navigate the labyrinth of the visitor visa application process that you’ll no doubt be going through. And also, I hope you found this useful.

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