The Case Officer Lottery

There is an unfortunate truth in the world of visas, which is not specific to New Zealand, but applicable to any immigration system, where human beings are involved in making decisions that impact on other peoples lives - that truth is that the outcome and the process involved to reach that outcome are very heavily influenced by the person who ends up processing the application.

You can have one set of rules, one set of standard operating procedures and one organisation in charge of all of it and yet, applicants of a similar background with similar situations can end up experiencing the process and coming out the other side, in very, very different ways.

The reality is, that despite attempts by most countries, New Zealand included, to automate visa processing, and to remove the inconsistency that the human element brings, people are still required to decide complex and unusual applications. People are different and immigration case officers (IO’s) are some of the most different you will ever encounter.

This then creates the potential for some very strange things to happen and we experienced that this week, on behalf of an existing client. With a case officer, demanding information that wasn’t necessary to my clients application, and being deliberately obstructive in the process - not to mention being wrong on most counts. It takes a lot to get me wound up, having dealt with hundreds of immigration officers over the years, but this one did have me a little more than frustrated.

If you are tackling this process on your own and you encounter one of these, less than helpful individuals, it can turn an already stressful and complicated process, into a complete nightmare. However if there is only one rule book and one organisation, why can you have such different experiences? Surely all officers are singing from the same song sheet?

One Rule Book

There is only one rule book for Visas, however it isn’t always applied in the same way.

The Problem With Consistency

In an ideal world all applications would be processed in the same way, using the same set of rules and the outcomes would be fair and balanced. Not everyone would be approved of course, because people make mistakes or apply for the wrong visa etc., but the most important thing is that everyone would be treated in the same way. The problem with consistency however is that it is almost impossible to achieve, when you have people involved in that process. Immigration officers come in a variety of shapes, sizes and backgrounds, but I have broadly summarised them in to three groups:

• The Positive Doer - rare, like unicorns. These officers are friendly, helpful, proactive and generally knowledgeable (or are smart enough to know what they dont know). If you get one of these, you have literally one the visa lottery.

• The “I Just Work Here” Officer - their enthusiasm for the job extends about as far as the office coffee machine. They will do no more than they must and at 5pm, they are already on the ground floor heading for the carpark. You will wait days/weeks for a response and it will generally consist of a one word answer.

• The Gate Keepers - These folks have enthusiasm by the bucket load, only its misplaced by them thinking they are saving New Zealand from the incoming masses. These folks take their jobs very seriously but go out of their way to demonstrate that they hold the keys.

Which camp, officers end up in, depends on a huge number of factors, including their cultural backgrounds, English ability, level of training, motivations to become an officer and even down to whether the coffee machine was working that morning or not. I would add however that the biggest influence on how these people operate comes down to how they are trained and then how they are managed (the topic of another post).

So while consistency is the ideal, what we end up with is a wide variety of different approaches to customers, different interpretations of the one set of rules and ultimately different outcomes. This is something INZ has been trying to solve, through a variety of means, and to their credit there is a will to change this, however until you work out why you have this inconsistency, its hard to get all the bodies facing in the same direction.

In the meantime, applicants (INZ would refer to them ironically as customers) end up with a mixed bag of experiences, and a bit of a lottery in terms of their process.

With Great Power…

For some, the fate of their Visa and future often rests in the hands of just one person…

How Much Power Do Officers Have?

Immigration officers actually do have a fairly wide range of powers, and those powers extend to asking for any information that might be relevant to whether you should be granted the visa that you have applied for. The key however is in the word “relevant” which for some officers is stretchy…like bubble gum. You might find (as we did this week) an officer asking you for information that you feel is unnecessary or irrelevant and in many cases, particularly if the officer is new, they might simply be doing things by the book and being a bit over-zealous. A more seasoned, experienced officer will often be more realistic with their requests. Sometimes however requests can be absolutely unreasonable and even though an officer might tell you, it is their right to ask for it…those rights have limitations.

We routinely challenge these requests, because we dont want our clients doing anything more than they need to do, to qualify for the Visa they have applied for. How well that challenge is received depends on which of the three camps the officer falls in to.

The key thing to remember is that while immigration officers do have powers to request information, they also have to be reasonable requests, they have to be able to justify why they are making those request and they should enter into a constructive discussion with you, when you challenge them. Unfortunately if you get the “Gate Keeper”, that can be a bit of a tricky process and for us, this often involves approaching someone further up the food chain.

The other factor to remember (and its a fault of INZ’s operational process) is that officers are given the responsibility of making a decision, where the managers are not allowed to intervene or influence. In fact most managers are quite proud of the fact that they have no idea as to how the visa process works, they are just there to “manage”. That always make me laugh, because how do you manage anyone where you have no clue as to what they do all day. It does however make the process of seeking a resolution more complicated.

Boxing Clever

If you get lumped with a difficult case officer, you need to be smart in terms of how you deal with them.

Keep Calm & Carry On

When you are confronted with an officer who is being difficult, or making unreasonable requests or just not being very cooperative, it is easy for things to get out of hand. A civilized conversation can spiral out of control very quickly and of course none of that is useful for your application (or your mental health). Having tackled these situations for years, myself and the team here, are able to see past it and manage the process, we also have the ability to pick up the phone to INZ staff that might have a cooler head, than the officer we are dealing with. As an applicant, doing it on your own, without those tools, there are still a few simple things you can do:

• Insist that everything is in writing. Officers can sometimes call you, which is great, but make sure they follow up with their request in writing.

• Keep a track of all correspondence, because if things do need to be escalated you want to have a clear paper-trail.

• Keep calm…it is easy to let you frustrations boil over on to the page, but that is not going to get you very far. Make sure your correspondence is polite, professional but also to the point.

• Consider having someone else look at the situation. It is easy to talk yourself in to believing you are right, however sometimes you might find that you are arguing a point that you simply can’t win. Think about whether you need to enlist the services of someone who can consider the situation objectively.

Above all else, remember that before you respond (in a fit of blind range), make sure you have all the facts you need, the evidence where required and present those in a calm and clear manager. Officers (particularly the Gate Keepers) very rarely respond to angry emails full of capital letters and bold type.

Need Help?

If your application is stuck or you are having issues dealing with any part of INZ, then sometimes bringing in a clear, objective and calm approach can be very useful. That is obviously what we can offer, along with the ability to connect with the right people to secure the right outcome.

In many cases, we just need to unravel the situation and get down to the key issue and in other cases, things are more complex and require more input, but either way, you can save yourself a lot of time, money and frayed nerves by handing your sticky situation over to people who deal with it on a daily basis.

Until next week.

P.S. We hope you like our new look….more to come.