The seven-month separation was because her husband, a Singaporean, does not possess a permit to enter Indonesia during the pandemic and Minanty does not hold a long-term visa to reside in Singapore. 

“I’m very happy about it, and I’m sure that this will bring joy to other mixed-marriage families,” said Minanty in a video message broadcast during a webinar on Wednesday. 

Minanty and many other families of mixed nationalities are now able to reunite in Indonesia, thanks to a recent change in visa policy. 

The Law and Human Rights Ministry’s Immigration Directorate General announced on Sept. 14 that it would allow foreign spouses and children of mixed-nationality marriages living abroad to apply for a VITAS 317 to enter Indonesia.

The policy comes after immigration authorities suspended almost all visa application processes, including for family reunification, and generally restricted foreigners from entering Indonesia as of April 2 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The Indonesian Mixed-Marriage Society (PerCa) previously sent letters to the immigration office expressing concerns about the policies and encouraging authorities to reinstate the visa application process for family reunification as a priority. 

“We express our highest gratitude to the Immigration Directorate General [...] for allowing VITAS 317 applications for mixed-marriage families in Indonesia or in other countries that were previously separated,” PerCa chairwoman Juliani W. Luthan said during Wednesday’s webinar. 

The policy on family reunification visas does not only apply to foreign members of mixed-nationality families but also to spouses or children of foreigners living in Indonesia who hold temporary stay permits (ITAS) and permanent stay permits (ITAP). 

The new policy allows foreign members of mixed-nationality families to apply for the visa online and offshore and submit documents, such as an application form and a copy of their passport, via the immigration office’s website visa-online.imigrasi.go.id.

The immigration office will send its approval, known as a telex visa, to applicants via email once officials verify their documents. Applicants can obtain the visa at an Indonesian embassy by providing the telex visa from the immigration office. 

Indonesian citizen Marcellina Lintang, 31, and her husband are now waiting for a telex visa from the Indonesian Embassy in Baghdad after immigration authorities approved their VITAS 317 application. 

Before the new policy was in place, Marcellina had finished her contract as a teacher in Iraq in July of this year. She was ready to return home but worried that immigration hurdles would separate her son and her from her husband, an American citizen who does not have a stay permit for Indonesia. 

Learning from her experience, she advised mixed-nationality families to apply for a stay permit regardless of where they live. 

“We don’t know what will happen in the future. We never know – my experience could be yours too,” said Marcellina, who had recently taken up a new job in Iraq and is planning to return to Indonesia by Christmas. 

The government is also planning more immigration relaxations. The immigration office’s head of visas, Hajar Aswad, said during the webinar that it would implement electronic visas starting from Oct. 15, adding that applicants would no longer need to go immigration offices to process them. 

However, he stressed that the immigration authorities were still unable to accommodate tourist visas for traveling purposes and that the VITAS 317 did not apply to mixed-nationality couples who were not yet married or planned to marry in Indonesia. 

“This does not mean the immigration office does not accommodate marriages in Indonesia, [but] it is certainly being selective to prevent COVID-19 transmission,” he said on Wednesday. 

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