The process of migrating to any new country, including New Zealand, brings with it the massive task of dealing with tedious and often cumbersome immigration procedures, including the ones related to visa applications.
And once an applicant, be it onshore or offshore, submits their visa application, then begins the waiting game for the outcome.
Regarding Immigration NZ and their relatively slow timeframe for processing visas, the applicants are left frustrated and often mentally traumatised as they have to wait for months to know about the decision on their visa applications.
If the latest information on INZ’s site is to go by, the processing time frames seem crazy and too much.
For example, according to INZ, 50 per cent of Permanent resident applications are completed within six months, and 90 per cent are completed in 11 months. And for Partners of a New Zealander visa, INZ takes six months to decide 50 per cent of applications and up to a year for 90 per cent of applications.
Not only this, for skilled migrant visas, the timeframe is also 40 months and up to 48 months for 90 per cent of applications to be completed.
Interestingly, until last week, the timeframes that INZ mentioned were drastically fewer. For example, for a permanent resident visa, it said 50 per cent of permanent resident applications are completed within 12 days, and 90 per cent are completed within 27 days.
A permanent resident visa is one that you apply if you have had a residence visa for more than two years. This visa allows you to travel in and out of NZ at any time you like. While resident visas have travel conditions that only allow a person to re-enter NZ as a resident until a specific date, a permanent resident visa allows indefinite re-entry into NZ.
Raj, who applied for a permanent resident visa in the first week of December and still waiting for the outcome, says, "This new timeframe is beyond acceptable. It should not take that long for INZ to process visa applications, especially permanent resident visa applications. Waiting for the application outcome while my passport is also with INZ is getting stressful. But I have no option but to wait."
When Indian Weekender checked with INZ regarding the reason behind this sudden change in time frames, Nicola Hogg, General Manager, Border and Visa Operations, said, "INZ is improving the way it provides processing times. To reflect that categories have only recently reopened, we are publishing the processing times for applications decided in the previous month instead of the previous three months it used to use.”
Hogg maintains that this provides a more accurate and relevant snapshot, especially now that the borders have only recently reopened.
“By providing a median number of days, along with the number of days it takes to process 90 per cent of applications, these new metrics give a good indication of what customers can expect regardless of the complexity of their application,” says Hogg.
According to Hogg, since many categories have only recently reopened, the processing times may still increase or decrease as INZ work through initial surges in application numbers and continue to improve visa processing timelines.
When explicitly asked about the timeframe surge in processing permanent resident visa applications, Hogg said, "About permanent resident visas, the reason for the significant change in processing time is because we managed to finalise a significant number of these applications that had only been waiting for third party checks to come through. These applications were the only ones that had been on our caseloads for more than 20 weekdays. We are confident that the processing times for permanent resident visa applications will return to normal.”
ISSUE
