The challenges of immigration changes

There have been many immigration changes in the 30+ years since the Pathways® immigration business was established in 1992. During this time, we have experienced 17 Ministers of Immigration, 5 changes of Government, and literally hundreds and hundreds of policy changes – and a significant border closure!

Throughout all of these changes there has been one constant, and that is the inconsistency of the rigour in which Immigration New Zealand (INZ) applies the immigration policy settings. The situation has always been that visas would be relatively straight-forward for a period only to be followed by a crackdown in which the exact same visas, with unchanged policy settings, suddenly become much more difficult with INZ applying very different interpretations of the same policy.

Anecdotally what happens (we believe) is that INZ, after experiencing the inflows and outcomes of particular visa applicants, and taking into account the “political climate”, will decide that it needs to turn the tap off (or on) and will generally do so by relying on some qualitative policy wording and not any policy change itself.

We are now very much in one of those “crackdown” periods!

For example, and in regard to visitor visas, prior to the border closure the visitor visa settings were reasonably clear as to who presented as a high-risk applicant and was likely to have their visa declined. However, following the border re-opening, and potentially also in response to the tourism industry demand, there was an inflow of these high-risk applicants, and it was apparent that many of these applicants had little reason or intention to return to their home countries at the end of their visit. And now the tide has turned, and the bar has been raised in response but, of course, when this happens it impacts across all visitor visa applicants. Those who have a sound travel history and valid reasons to travel, including visiting family in New Zealand, and who also have good incentives to return home, are now experiencing visa difficulties. Many more applications are being declined than previously, and likely leading to more complaints and reconsiderations being made of INZ.

We experience these swings and roundabouts across the main visa categories on a regular basis.

It is also not unusual to rely on a particular policy and practice for years, with many successful outcomes, and then for INZ to suddenly do an about-turn and advise that this practice is no longer valid, and a changed interpretation now applies. INZ does provide updated guidance about changes in policy interpretation, but these are normally only issued sometime after the fact and following the industry’s approaches to seek clarification about exactly what is going on.

It is acknowledged that immigration is a particularly dynamic and ever-changing landscape with many moving parts and is subject to many different influences - and it is just about impossible to have policy settings which can stand the test of time. As a consequence, it can often be very challenging for immigration advisers and lawyers to advise clients but a consistent interpretation and application by INZ of policy settings would certainly be welcomed.