The Indian Weekender, 26 February 2021

4 NEW ZEALAND
Friday, February 26, 2021
The Indian Weekender
Immigration NZ offices in Mumbai, Manila
and Pretoria to close down next month
IWK BUREAU
September 2020 and is currently
processing visa applications for
329 staff overseas employed by
individuals who are already in
Immigration New Zealand will
New Zealand.
lose their job as a result of the
“The timing of the withdrawal
closures of three offices overseas.
of visa processing from Beijing
Immigration NZ, on Tuesday,
will depend on a number of factors,
February 23, announced that it is
including visa volumes and changes
closing down its offices in Mumbai
to New Zealand’s border restrictions.
in India, Manila in the Philippines
INZ will continue to monitor this
and Pretoria in South Africa by
over the next six months,” Catriona
March 2021.
Robinson says.
INZ is also planning to withdraw
The office closures will affect 329
the processing of the visa from its
A
Beijing office.
The reduction in visa volumes, s a result, INZ has “This is not a decision that we have staff, who are locally employed in
A press release from INZ said
combined with new technology made the difficult made lightly. Our staff in these offices each city.
the immigration system is facing
capabilities, has provided decision to close our have made a significant contribution Catriona Robinson says she
an unprecedented challenge as New Immigration New Zealand (INZ) offices in Mumbai, to INZ and New Zealand.
is confident that INZ is well
Zealand continues to respond to the with the opportunity to futureproof Manila and Pretoria by “However, these offices have been placed to increase our onshore
global COVID-19 pandemic. and change the way we work.
closed since March 2020, and with no processing capacity.
March 2021 and bring
With border restrictions remaining Deputy Head of INZ Catriona
certainty about when visa volumes “The rollout of new technology
more visa processing
in place for almost 12 months, Robinson says that INZ has a
may return to normal, INZ has had to functions aims to improve efficiency
onshore
incoming visa volumes from people responsibility to adapt to the
make some tough decisions.
and resilience throughout INZ, which
who are offshore have decreased changing environment and ensure we
“In addition, INZ is also planning will help us to better manage peaks
significantly across a number of are contributing to New Zealand’s in Mumbai, Manila and Pretoria to withdraw visa processing from our and troughs in visa volumes while
visa categories, including visitor and
student visa applications which are
primarily processed offshore.
COVID-19 economic recovery.
“As a result, INZ has made the
difficult decision to close our offices
by March 2021 and bring more
visa processing onshore,” Catriona
Robinson says.
Beijing office while strengthening
our risk and verification presence.
“The Beijing office reopened in
giving users of the immigration
system a better customer experience,”
Catriona Robinson says.
Why are migrants upset at offshore
VISA offices' closure?
SANDEEP SINGH
Migrants and temporary
visa holders are clearly
upset over the latest
announcement of closing offshore
visa processing offices.
Immigration New Zealand has
quietly announced on Tuesday,
February 23 to close offshore visa
processing offices at Mumbai,
Pretoria and Manila and scale back
the work of the fourth office at
Beijing.
INZ said that this decision of
“right-sizing” their organisation was
reflective of the current realities of
NZ’s border-closure regime and the
accompanied shortfall in the number
of visa applications.
The decision was kept low-key and
presented to the mainstream media
as a cost-cutting operational decision
by the immigration bureaucracy
– supposedly not requiring any
political oversight by the government
of the day.
Expectedly, there was little hue
and cry on this seeming rationale
decision taken by an immigration
bureaucracy, which is hoping to get
the best outcome for everyone from
this decision.
However, poor migrants and
temporary visa holders, who actually
have to deal with the immigration
bureaucracy on a day-to-day basis,
are clearly upset with the prospects
of the outcome of the decision and
how it can potentially make their life
more difficult.
For temporary migrants, who are
still engaging or planning to negotiate
with immigration bureaucracy in
the near future, any random closure
of visa processing offices, are
often signs of less interface, less
engagement, less problem solving
and therefore less service.
Last time when a similar
bureaucratic decision about the
closing of overseas offices was
quietly pushed under the carpet by
Immigration New Zealand in late
2017, the entire user experience with
immigration bureaucracy was turned
upside down.
INZ had then closed eight overseas
offices at Ho Chi Minh, Hong Kong,
Jakarta, Bangkok, New Delhi,
Pretoria, Moscow and Shanghai - and
two in New Zealand “to align and
consolidate visa processing.”
Visa processing was also ceased
in four other offices – Manila,
Washington DC, London and Dubai –
shifting the staff for other tasks such
as market intelligence managing risk,
carrying out verification activities
and maintaining relationships with
key partner countries.
Immigration NZ had then
assured that the move was fiscally
prudent and minimised risks in visa
processing and, therefore in the best
interest of the country.
Cleary, like now, then also there
was no mention or reference to any
impact on “user-experience” and
“service-expectation of temporary
migrants and visa hopefuls” who
actually were the ones to bear all
consequences of any changes in the
system – operational or policy.
Gradually, within months, from
mid-2018, the queues in front of
the immigration offices started
ballooning disproportionately,
causing inordinate delays in visa
processing in almost every visa
category.
The public memory would still be
afresh with the issue of partnership
visa delays that saw thousands of visa
hopefuls languishing in processing
queues, sometimes more than seven
to nine months before even a case
officer could actually open their file.
The situation in the processing of
Essential Skill Work visas, Skilled
Migrant Category Visa was not far
better with at one stage processing
time for SMC category having
reached 12-18 months.
As more and more people reached
out to media and public protest
against what they perceived as gross
negligence and poor experience and
raise their voice with the government,
there began a political football about
the shifting of responsibility between
the government of the day and the
previous government.
While the political-football
continued with opposition National
blaming the Labour government
for visa delays and the Labour
government blaming National for
sitting over the bureaucratic decision
of closing of overseas offices
under their watch in the previous
government – the plight of migrants
had continued unabated.
In 2019, the issue of partnership
visa delays further exasperated into a
full-blown crisis when one of INZ’s
offices started arbitrary interpretation
of rules and requirements for
partnership visas and categorically
targeted relationships based on
Indian marriages and rejecting the
applications.
Information received under the
Official Information Act (OIA)
by the Indian Weekender revealed
that INZ’s Mumbai office had
then purportedly started different
interpretation of requirements for
partnership visa with an intention to
clear the burgeoning queue.
The issue eventually witnessed
intervention by Prime Minister
Jacinda Ardern, and the then
Immigration Minister issued new
immigration-instructions and
re-opened about 1200 rejected
partnership visa applications.
One of the major reason repeatedly
advanced by political leaders in the
government about visa delays in
every category was the closure of
INZ overseas processing offices,
which was nicely sandwiched with
the increase in demand for NZ visa
and hence the increased number of
visa applications.
INZ bureaucracy was then
clearly caught off-guarded with the
increased demand for NZ visa, in
the months following immediately
after the closure of visa processing
centres.
Many observers and industry
stakeholders had then asked why
INZ bureaucracy was allowed to take
such operational decision which has
the potential to alter the policy of
the government without any political
oversight.
It is to say that the issue of
partnership visa delays and abrupt
decline of applications based on
Indian marriages that emanated
under a government self-indulging
as a government of kindness has its
roots in an operational decision taken
by INZ in 2017 or closing overseas
centres without having replaced with
onshore trained staff.
Regardless of the public debate
and intense media scrutiny, and
public pressure, only people who had
to bear the consequences eventually
and face prolonged separation from
their near and dear ones, were poor
migrants.
Therefore, they are again worried
and upset now.
Like in 2017, this time also, there
seems to be no political oversight or
political messaging.
To make it worse, this closing down
of overseas visa processing office
is happening one year after border
closure and the halt of international
travel and drying up of revenue from
international education.
It is not clear what is the
government strategy towards those
pre-Covid international education
market.
Has New Zealand decided to
pack its bag and leave those markets
for good that were developed so
incrementally over the years?
At least, this is what many players
in the international education market
are panicking about and already
making frantic calls to education
providers onshore to ascertain if
that was the political message of the
government.
Indeed, no one has got a crystal
ball to visualise how would the post-
Covid world turn out to be, especially
about international travel and export
education, yet the message going out
right now is that New Zealand has
already decided to exit from those
markets for good.
Even leaving aside the commercial
side, the migrants and visa hopefuls
keen to join their families onshore
perceive this decision as a sign of
New Zealand giving up on them.