If you’re struggling with the MA35, their requirements and their long processing times, let me tell you: we get you.
Last Saturday, a Demonstration took place in front of the Viennese Rathaus, where students, professionals and families got together to show their discontent with how MA35 handles residence permit applications. It was all organized by a married couple, whose immigration situation was stopping them from providing for their three kids. Luckily for them, their process has finally ended and they can proudly say they now have a residence permit; but this is the same problem hundreds of families face.
The event was attended by reporters from PULS 24 and ORF and the protesters shared their stories with them. For example, how people need to travel back and forth because they can’t “overstay” their period without a permit. Not only do we need to consider the expenses involved, but the frustration of not being able to have a life. You can’t build a life in Austria if you’re not allowed to stay, to have a job, to be apart from your partner for months.
If you already went through the First Time Application process and hold a residence permit, you’re not free of trouble: the same issues are being present for the renewal processes. You can say this is a ‘less inconvenient’ situation, since you are allowed to stay in Austria and you keep your working rights, but this time you can not leave the country. The MA35 offers as a solution the Notvignette, which allows you to travel “for emergency reasons”, costs 32€ and is only valid for 3 months, well… at the demonstration there was a man who shared the story of his mother in law passing away, the MA35 didn’t provide him with said Notvignette, and the family was not able to say goodbye.
We can’t say that the MA35 doesn’t care at all about these issues, but they for sure lack speed on fixing them. This fact is surprising since they have less requests than five years ago… so what is stopping them to respond to immigrants and treat us as they should? In a humane way.
The MA35 did not comment previous to the demonstration nor afterwards.
More info at:
Facebook Group: Demonstration MA 35
Facebook Fanpage: Migrants in Vienna
Website: migrantsinvienna.org
NIWA 