If you are South African, the word ‘Gatvol’ will make perfect sense and if you are in South Africa, wondering when the lights will turn back on, it will resonate even more loudly.

For those, unfamiliar with the term it is a very eloquent way of saying you have had a “guts full”. A word I hear often when talking to prospective South African candidates for migration to New Zealand.

Paul Janssen speaks to Radio New Zealand on the issue of migrant exploitation - a topic that has been gaining significant media and political attention over the last few weeks.

Audio file available to stream or download from the article page (or external link to Radio New Zealand).

New Zealand is a bit unique when it comes to how we dish out Resident Visas and when we offer ‘Permanent Residence’, we are one of very few countries around the world that actually means it.

The process to secure Residence is complicated, but once you have it, your ability to keep it forever can be a lot more straight-forward. The big benefit NZ offers, is the fact that it is in fact permanent.

This week our new (and yes we have had a few recently) Immigration Minister has been pushed in to admitting that the Accredited Employer Work Visa scheme, needs to be reviewed. However the review is being undertaken of how INZ is delivering it, which is actually a smart move.

There is no shortage of bad press on this Visa policy at the moment, and plenty more to come, but is it really a flawed system or have their been other factors contributing to the spike in cases of migrant exploitation?

The last pool draw under the current Skilled Migrant Category is due to take place next Wednesday (16 August) and then we will enter a brief pause, before the new policy takes effect on 09 October.

For every Visa fact, there are a hundred or more myths and often those myths end up steering people down completely the wrong track or worse still, ending up being declined.

There has been a lot of news, very recently, on whether the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV), which is now a year old, should be paused or even shelved entirely. This all comes off the back of reports of migrants arriving here on that Work Visa, to find there is no job and no future.

The Visa process can be a breeding ground for myth, rumour and speculation and most of it comes from the fact that when people publish their good news, Visa approval stories online, they leave out a lot of the mistakes, issues and challenges they faced along the way.

There is no doubt that the introduction of the new Skilled Migrant Category policy has changed the landscape (and plans) for a large number of prospective migrants. The biggest change to those that qualify, being the potential need to work in New Zealand for between one and three years, depending on the skills they bring to the table.

In my line of work, you have to be comfortable telling some people that the best option, is no option at all. Unfortunately for every person we assist through this process, there are an awful lot more who simply don’t qualify and explaining that to them can be a difficult process.

There are a lot of very good quotes about the value of persistence, but one sticks out to me as being the perfect description of how some Visa application processes can feel , not only for the applicant but also for their adviser - “It always seems impossible until it is done”.

Following yesterdays article on the updated Skilled Migrant Category, we now have the formal rules, which adds the detail to the headlines. In this post, we go over some of the key areas of change, the standout points and a few scenarios to help people get their head around what these changes mean.

In a nutshell, the formal rules, paint a pretty similar picture to that which was announced early yesterday morning (incidentally just before the Immigration Minister resigned).

For most migrants, securing a Work Visa is the first step in a much bigger process, leading towards Residence, and so it can often be the most important mountain to climb and hurdle to overcome.

Often it is the end result in what could have been a very lengthy and frustrating job search, opening the doorway to being able to settle and eventually live here permanently.

If you aren’t already familiar with it, the Green List is a growing list of occupations that Immigration New Zealand uses to offer various pathways to Residence, as well as identifying roles that are in demand and therefore employers do not have to demonstrate any attempts to fill locally (for Work Visas).

Given we know these roles are hard to fill, it is easier for an Accredited employer to support an applicant for a Work Visa to fill one of these vacancies.

Unsurprisingly one of the questions that pops up a lot around here is what happens to your Visa application once it is submitted…with most applications being filed online, once you click the “go” button, the process beyond that is somewhat of a mystery. That then leads to the inevitable question of how long it will all take.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is nothing new although is making a sudden and very large arrival with the roll out of systems such as ChatGPT and Google’s Bard equivalent. These systems are incredibly powerful (and will have a huge impact) but does any of this technology have a role to play in the way Visas are processed?

A failure to plan, is planning to fail, as the saying goes and arguably that is what appears to have happened here with our border re-opening.

As recently as this week, numbers indicate that as few as one in five Visitor Visa applications recieved since the application processed opened at the beginning of August have been approved, leaving tens of thousands of applications in the queue.

With immigration featuring in the news more than ever before, we dig in to the current options available and what the future might hold…

For all of our clients, timing is crucial - whether it is securing that initial Work Visa, once the job is in hand or getting to the final goal of Residence as quickly as possible - for most of them, having to wait weeks or months is like having the night before Christmas on an endless loop.

Let’s face it, waiting for anything is painful, but waiting for confirmation that your new life in NZ can start, is absolutely torturous.

With over 200,000 applicants are being approved through the one-off 2021 Resident Visa program…many will be looking at options for their parents to follow them. With borders opening, what pathways exist for parents looking to join their children in New Zealand?