Reassessing of the Risk Factors: Immigration New Zealand instructs staff about visitors
In a leaked document from Immigration New Zealand, the Immigration New Zealand has instructed their staff to reassess the risk factors for the visitors.
These instructions were issued in order to clear the excess number of applications which are outstanding in the Immigration queue.
According to the National Party the border of New Zealand is at risk but it is declined by the immigration minister by saying that they are confident about the security of the border.
Kiwis have opened their borders to welcome the immigrants after the long COVID years. More and more people are willing to visit New Zealand which has caught the Immigration New Zealand off-guard.
According to Richard Owen, general manager of INZ's verification and compliance branch, the response for the visitor visa was three times more than expected. INZ had a pivot point about the visitor visas.
Almost 573,000 people from visa exempt countries have received the permission to come to New Zealand by the end of November 22.
The number of visitors who require a visa to enter New Zealand is about 135,000 foreign nationals. Apart from these almost 40,000 visitor visa applications were yet to be processed by the INZ.
The reassessing factor helped in flagging the high risk applications which requires manual processing. These applications will have a document scan.
All the core assessments in the Immigration New Zealand are made in terms of the health, character and criminal convictions of the visitor visa applicants. The tests around them are rigorous according to Immigration Minister Michael Wood.
The reassessment of the applications is normal and according to the rules of the INZ according to Richard Owen.
But as per reports by the INZ insiders this reassessment is not normal. This will put the border integrity at risk and could lead to overstaying of more people than their intended time making them vulnerable to exploitation.
National's immigration spokesperson Erica Stanford said that this will help in filtering the people through the integrity of the border system.
If this will put the integrity of the system at risk, then the Immigration New Zealand will not make these changes in the process. As the immigration minister, border integrity is my first concern according to immigration minister Wood.
