78 percent of 2021 resident visa applications by Indians approved; Only 152 officers to process applications 

The day Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's government announced the 2021 Resident Visa programme — is a significant date in New Zealand’s immigration history. 

The two-phased programme, whose processing started on December 1, 2021, is expected to provide residence to about 1,65,000 migrants. 

The Phase 1 processing, which began on December 1, was for those who had already applied for residence under the Skilled Migrant or Residence from Work categories on or before September 29, 2021 or had submitted a Skilled Migrant Category Expression of Interest and had included their dependent child in the Expression of Interest aged 17 years or older on September 29’ 2021.

The second phase for all other eligible migrants was due to begin on March 1, 2022, but Immigration NZ announced that from February 21, 2022, they would open applications early for a group of up to 10,500 individuals who have a Skilled Migrant Category (SMC) Expression of Interest (EOI) in the pool that was submitted on or before September 29 2021. It may be noted that Phase 2 applications made using INZ enhanced Immigration Online platform were held until the end of March 2022, and from the end of March, INZ started to release Phase 2 applications in a controlled way for processing, based on the expiry date of the principal applicant’s current visa. 

Indian Weekender obtained the latest update from INZ regarding the application processing of one-off residence visas - both Phase 1 and Phase 2. 

Sarah Clifford, Acting General Manager, Border and Visa Operations, says, “Processing applications for the 2021 Resident Visa is a priority for Immigration New Zealand (INZ). We are committed to deciding most of these residence applications within 12 months, with some being much faster. Our staff have been working hard to process these applications since the category opened, and we are making good progress.”

Since Phase 1 applications opened on December 1, 2021, as of April 11, 2022, INZ had received 25,398 applications under Phase 1 of the 2021 Resident Visa. Of these, 16,841 applications have been approved, and 37,634 people have become NZ residents. Interestingly, INZ has also received 66,428 applications under Phase 2. Of these, 22 applications have been approved, and 48 people have become NZ residents. 

When asked about the data specifically about Indian applicants, Clifford, responds, “As of April 11 2022, we had received 7,195 applications from Indian nationals under Phase 1 of the 2021 Resident Visa. Of these, 5,670 have been approved, and 11,156 have become NZ residents.” This means while INZ has approved nearly 63 per cent of applications in Phase 1, nearly 80 percent of the applications submitted by Indians have been approved.

Sarah further revealed that 22,967 applications received under Phase 2 have been from Indian nationals. This means that nearly 35 per cent of applications received by INZ under Phase 2 are of Indians.

Only 152 immigration officers are working on the 2021 Resident visa application 

There is no doubt that INZ has been under the scanner for its lack of processing capacity. So, we asked INZ whether any additional staff has been hired to process Phase 2; Clifford says, "We are always building capacity and capability to ensure timely visa decisions for applicants across all visa categories can be delivered. We have hired a number of new processing staff over the last 12 months, who have been trained across a number of different visa categories and are not all processing 2021 Resident Visa applications.”

Interestingly, only 152 immigration officers are processing the 2021 Resident visa. “ We currently have a total of 658 immigration officers deciding visa applications. Of those, we dedicated 105 immigration officers to process Phase 1 applications. That number has increased with the opening of Phase 2, and we currently have 152 immigration officers working on 2021 Resident Visa applications. We regularly move and, where applicable, train staff between different visa categories to ensure we have enough staff to process all visa categories,” says Clifford.