Migrants vying for a resident visa were forced to pay thousands of dollars for unnecessary medical tests due to bugs with Immigration New Zealand’s new processing platform
Immigration New Zealand has promised to refund “about 1000” resident visa applicants, some of whom needlessly forked out thousands of dollars for medical and x-ray tests between April and July this year. But an immigration lawyer says that number is likely a vast undercount.
The error happened when the department switched to a new processing platform for phase two applicants, which did not register that medical assessments had already been submitted.
In a written response to the Education and Workforce Committee earlier this week Immigration Minister Michael Wood said about 1000 applicants were affected.
“INZ is refunding costs accrued by applicants who were informed that they were required to undergo health screening when their specific situation did not require it.
“Communications have since been sent to all 2021 Resident Visa applicants to ask them not to provide health screening information until specifically contacted by INZ.”
Wood also said immigration had advised a fix had been implemented on July 21 to avoid the error continuing.
However, immigration lawyer Arran Hunt said the figure was an undercount and it was likely thousands of people who were impacted.
“I’d say about 20 percent of our clients were impacted by this. A thousand would be about 1.5 percent… I don’t believe that our clients are a statistical anomaly. If [the immigration minister] believes it is 1000 then they haven’t fixed the issue yet or correctly identified the number impacted."
He said many people went out and got unneeded medicals and x-rays without question.
“At about $400 each they aren’t cheap, especially with the current cost of living situation. If you have a family, you could be looking at thousands.
“We tried to get the message out to people but migrants are scared of government departments as they often come from places where governments are corrupt.
“INZ’s solution of ‘raise a complaint and we will refund you’ is something they won’t do, as they are afraid that it will mean they will be declined."
Hunt also said the issue had not been fixed, citing a letter received by a client on July 23 asking for a medical assessment - two days after the fix was supposed to have been enacted.
“And we still have a number of clients showing ‘waiting on you to provide medicals’. We’ve uploaded our letter to each [and] INZ tell us that this is all we can do, and that we need to wait for the process for someone to see our letter and let the application proceed.”
The 2021 Resident Visa is a one-off visa announced in September as a simplified pathway to residence for around 165,000 migrants currently in New Zealand
“We are providing a way forward for our migrant families who have been long disrupted by Covid-19, while ensuring businesses have the certainty they need to plan into the future and continue driving the economic recovery,” former immigration minister Kris Faafoi said at the time.
“The changes give migrants certainty about their future here, allowing them to continue putting down roots, and will help reunite many families who were separated by the border restrictions that prevent Covid-19 entering the community.”
Phase one applications for those who had already applied for residence or expressed an interest as a skilled migrant were processed under INZ’s previous system, but phase two - for all other applicants - began processing on April 1 under a new system.
Hunt said the new system was “bug ridden” and “whoever signed it off shouldn’t be working there anymore”.
“I’d recommend anyone to fill out an application to see the confusing language used. The application switches between whether you are applying for the main person or their partner, and the terms used. Yesterday I had to give an applicant’s Kiwi partner a middle name, as the application wouldn’t proceed unless she had a middle name.
“For another, a child born in New Zealand who has never left the country, it demanded their last overseas address… These are just some of the bugs I’ve seen in the past couple of days.”
National Party spokesperson for immigration Erica Stanford said it was another example of Immigration NZ “in complete and utter disarray”.
“So much heartache, so much cost, so much queuing up… some of these people had to queue for hours to get an assessment.”
Applications for the visa close on Sunday.
