Another licenced immigration adviser rips off his clients.
So, one Rajesh Kumar was granted a license by the IAA back in November 2008. His licenses were renewed in 2009 and 2010. He surrendered his license in September 11 – after being taken to the Tribunal for two cases of ripping off his clients and ahving to pay $9776 in compensation and $11500 in penalties.
In the first case Kumar received $3600 in cash to help an Indian manager secure a residence permit but after it became clear the migrant’s application was successful Kumar demanded more money and retained the man’s passport, the tribunal found.
Immigration New Zealand was not able to issue the permit until the passport was released but after the migrant complained to the tribunal Kumar released the passport.
Kumar also faxed a $500 demand to the manager’s work place and hired a debt collection agency which demanded fees and threatened the migrant with a poor credit rating if he failed to pay.
In defending his actions to the tribunal, Kumar said he had lost his memory to the extent he could not recognise his client and could not distinguish between reality and imagination.
The tribunal’s chairperson did not accept Kumar’s reasoning and said he “wrote a coherent account of that claim and provided no independent support, medical or otherwise”.
You have to admit – its a bloody cheeky defense – but one which – if it were true – would in fact render you unfit to work as an immigration agent. I guess that was lost on him.
In another case, Kumar told his client to follow an alternative path in updating his work visa from the advice given by Immigration New Zealand.
His approach failed and the migrant was left in a position where he was in New Zealand illegally, the tribunal said.
The migrant hired a lawyer to get his work permit and to help lodge a complaint with the Immigration Advisers Authority, the tribunal said.
In response to the complaint, Kumar sent a letter to the lawyer saying the migrant was a convict and lodged a complaint about the lawyer to the New Zealand Law Society.
He told the tribunal he could not ask for a second opinion on his immigration advice because he did not know anyone more experienced than himself.
This guy really is a piece of work.
Registrar Barry Smedts said this case demonstrated how important it was for consumers to do their homework on an immigration adviser.
“People using licensed immigration advisers are more likely to get their money back if things go wrong.”
You know – I am actually really tired of this stock answer – it makes no sense. The simple fact is that these two client DID do their homework. They used Immigration Agents that Mr Smedts and his team had given licenses to- telling them that this Agent was a professional of high standing and could be trusted. They were not legally allowed to use any other agent. They did what the IAA tells the to do – they protected themselves by using licensed agents.
It is the IAA that is not doing it’s homework properly. It is giving licenses out to people who should not have them. The fact that people can (in some cases) get compensation does not let the IAA off the hook – the IAA should be paying compensation for having allowed another adviser a license to screw immigrants over.
Student Visa Rules relaxed -again
Filed under: Immigration Advisers, NZIS & Immigration issues
If ever you were in doubt that what matters most with Immigration rules was money – you really need to look no further than Student Visas. Already they are exempt from Immigration Advisers Licensing Act rules which means that you do not have to use a licensed adviser to help you with your application. The reason given for this is purely and simply that it was thought enforcing such a rule would mean less students would come to New Zealand and it would damage the lucrative market in selling education to foreigners.
Protecting those students from unscrupulous Immigration agents is of no concern. The students are worth WAY too much money to risk a cut in numbers by insisting that (apparently) their agents should be be properly qualified / licensed.
Now it seems we are going further – and cutting out the requirement for students to have to complete health tests.
Currently - Students wanting to come here for more than a short course need to pass the same Health and Character requirements as the rest of us (well – all of us except Kim Dotcom anyway.)
Now, they will just have to pass tests to make sure they don’t have TB – but otherwise – they just need to declare that they have any health issues.
Yay! That’ll work!
Relaxing health screening requirements for international students could lead to people infected with HIV and hepatitis being granted visas to study here, medical experts say.
Student visa applicants will be screened only for tuberculosis from July, unless they have other health conditions, and will no longer need to supply full medicals.
The onus will instead rest on applicants to declare their health conditions rather than on medical checks to detect diseases.
Sopheng Veng, a former postgraduate accountancy student from Cambodia who faced a deportation order after he was diagnosed with hepatitis B and C during a medical screening, said he was thrilled with the changes.
Well, he would, wouldn’t he?
He is planning to apply for a visa to complete his study in New Zealand now there will no longer be a need for full medicals.
Mr Veng, 29, claimed he caught the infections from prostitutes here, but is in a good state of health.
I’m sorry – but -
A general practitioner specialising in immigration medicals, who did not want to be named, said the savings made by students paying for medical screenings could end up costing the taxpayer.
Who cares? The money we screw out of these students in fees will, I’s sure, more than make up for the cost!
But an Immigration spokeswoman said the changes “do not diminish an applicant’s requirement to declare health conditions or meet health conditions”.
Immigration Minister Nathan Guy said the changes were aimed at “reducing red tape” and “making it easier for low-risk, high-value students to come to New Zealand”.
The international education sector is worth $2.3 billion to the economy.
And THAT is the important point.
Students are worth more.
So who gives a crap.
Are more than a third of all Immigrants being sponsored under the Family Sponsorship System?
According to the media storm whipped up over changes to NZ Immigration Policy:
Last year, 36 per cent (or 14,826) of all New Zealand residence approvals were family-sponsored migrants.
Of these, 4036 were approved under the parent policy and 1186 under the sibling and adult child category
This was repeated this morning on tv3 news – so it must be right? Well, I am just sad enough to check!
- Yes – last year (2010/2011 Immigration) there were 48,015 immigrants granted residency in New Zealand.
- Of that there were actually 17,038 people who came in under Family Sponsorship Categories.
- That’s 35.5%.
- However, the bulk of those (9,189) are actually partnership applications – so possibly a large number of those are Kiwi’s apply for partners.
So – is that the whole picture?
Well – err – no not quite. Unsurprisingly, Immigration is a hot potato when you need to try and make a political fuss. It’s the same in any country, so this is certainly not an NZ issue, and its the same whichever party is in power vs whichever party is in opposition. Truth gets massaged to try and fit what you want to claim.
So what is the big picture?
The fact is that right now there are not many skilled migrants applying to come to New Zealand. This is probably for 2 main reasons: there’s still a recession in most countries making it hard to sell property and move on, and the even if you manage that, the exchange rate is so bad it make moving here VERY expensive.
So it is quite likely that the proportion of family applications that get accepted is going to rise simply because the number of skilled/business applications is falling.
Here are the numbers since 1997.
So what does this mean?
Well, for the past 14 years, the average percentage of all people approved which have come from the Family Sponsored Categories is 33%. And while last year the percentage was higher than the previous 10 years, it certainly wasn’t the highest. In 97-2000 the average was 41.5% coming in under family sponsorship.
It’s also clear from looking at the real numbers, that the NUMBER of PEOPLE coming in under family schemes isn’t really changing. Which makes sense as Parent and Adult Sibling Sponsorship is capped. I.e. They only let so many in every year anyway. And the bulk of the uncapped family applications is for Partners.
So the upshot is perhaps that while less skilled migrants can afford to emigrate, more Kiwis are looking abroad for wives / husbands??? Partnership applicants make up nearly 20% of the total number immigrants in the last year.
Either way – it’s really nothing new that around a third of all immigrants come in as family.
Are immigration New Zealand Categories and rules about to change?
The news is full today of “leaked” (turns out “released under the Official Information Act”) government plans to make it substantially harder for people to immigrate to New Zealand. (Second article here with some different information).
So, reading through a lot of emotional guff about this, this is what I am pretty sure it’s all about:
- Immigration categories may be changed to try and stop immigrants coming to New Zealand and being unable to get a job.
- In the last EOI selection for the Skilled Migrant Category, 80 applications were selected without Job Offers.
- This was the whole point of Labours massive change to the Immigration system back in 2004 – no immigrant was supposed to be able to come here without a job in hand.
- Parent Sponsorship applications will be placed into different streams depending on the income of the sponsors.
- At the moment you only need to be able to prove an income of around $27,000 in order to sponsor parents, and bearing in mind that you sigh to say you will support them for 2 years – that is frankly a joke.
- You will now have to support your parents for 10 years before they would be eligible for any benefits. This is quoted as being up from 5 years – it’s actually 2 years at the moment.
- The new rule, if it comes in, will give priority to the parents of high income earners.
- Top Tier applicants would not have to meet Centre Of Gravity requirements
- Second tier applicants would not be able to immigrate if they had a second child in their home country.
Something that is being ignored is that back in May 2010, the government already introduced a 2-teir system for Parent Sponsorship – with the Parent Retirement Category – parents with $1m to invest, $60k a year income, and $500k in settlement funds catapulted to the front of the queue, and not having to wait or their children to have spent 3 years as New Zealand residents.
- Parents would no longer be able bring in Dependent Children.
- Now I am going to assume that this should be written as ADULT dependent children. I just cant see New Zealand telling parents they can have a visa, but you cant bring your kids.
- Essentially, if you have an adult child, they need to be able to work and/or support themselves.
- The sibling and adult child category (which my brother came in on) is to be scrapped.
- Applicants who can’t speak English will have to pre-pay for courses.
- Which as far as I know they already have to – so this isn’t going to make the slightest bit of difference.
- No mention of whether they actually have to attend, complete or even pass the course!
- Besides, there are plenty of Kiwis who are barely able to be understood – speaking or writing!
The article also states:
Last year, 36 per cent (or 14,826) of all New Zealand residence approvals were family-sponsored migrants.
Of these, 4036 were approved under the parent policy and 1186 under the sibling and adult child category
Bizarrely enough – the INZ website is “unavailable” so I can’t do a check on numbers, but will do as soon as it miraculously starts working again. Because that doesn’t quite make sense to me.
Do you need to worry?
Hmm. Honestly don’t know. Nathan Guy is MIA on the issue today, but I think it’s worth noting that this is a discussion document only at this stage. However – you need to be prepared. This is very bad news for people who, like me, can only really contemplate the move if it involves the whole family. If all these changes were in fact made, they would stop me coming here if I was still in the UK. That is a frankly appalling thought, and I imagine there are plenty of people who are going to be devastated if this does go through.
As always, comments on the articles are worth a read – you can find out more about life in New Zealand and what Kiwi’s are like via the comments on news sites than you ever will from the Official line of INZ.
More on INZ keeping decisions secret so people won’t complain.
After I finally blogged about this issue – I noticed another article on Google News about it, with further quotes of interest. That article also said that the issue was first raised by a New Zealand blog, No Right Turn. So I have been having a fascinating read of what they have to say.
No Right Turn first raised the issue back in November 2011, and sent an OIA Request to Immigration New Zealand for details.
These posts also contain links to the Circular put out by INZ explicitly telling staff not to record their reasons for declining visas under section 61, and emails rationalising the decision, from Kathy Tait, the Team Manager (Acting) at INZ. (Side Issue – in 8 years if dealing with INZ – most people we come into contact with when escalating anything are only “acting” in the role. Says it all really!)
The circular was sent to staff dated 14th November 2011. It was in September 2011 that I found out that INZ had hidden the complaints process again and it was no longer prominent on their website, which it had been after I complained to the Ombudsmen about the total lack of it anywhere on the internet. I actually contacted INZ about this and their response was
The complaints resolution process is accessible on the right-hand side of the “Contact us” page (www.immigration.govt.nz/
migrant/general/aboutnzis/ ) . ”Contact us” is positioned on the banner of all Immigration New Zealand webpages.contactus/
Right – so basically – we know, we don’t care, it’s there somewhere, it’s not our fault if people are too dumb to find where we hid it.
Coincidence?
Are INZ already sick of Immigrants making complaints? Do I care? Do I have an iota of sympathy?
Now, back to the issue.
No Right Turn shows that the earlier draft of the Circular states that:
(records) should show that the Immigration Officer has taken into consideration all the relevant facts of the case and has come to a logical, reasonable decision based on those facts.
The new version says the opposite – that decisions should not be recorded.
As for the recording of reasons for decisions, according to the timeline provided [DOC], this decision was made in early July after concerns were raised by “Resolutions” [PDF]. The immigration officers concerned were remarkably frank about their reasons [PDF]:
[Resolutions] strongly feel that including rationale just opens us up to the risk of judicial review and ombudsman complaints.And the ultimate reason for excluding them?
I wouldn’t want to make it mandatory to put something (rationale) in AMS [DoL's database] which is likely to generate more work and complaints for branches.Yes, that’s right: they did it explicitly in an effort to thwart complaints.
Which is exactly the behavior many of us have come to expect from the department. It’s immensely dishonest from the top down to the bottom. Unsurprising, the Ombudsman has stayed silent on the issue.
Now I really recommend wading through the posts at No Right Turn. The work he has done on this is seriously impressive – but I would like to show a screenshot of one of the emails he has linked to – because I think people should know the kind of people who are employed by INZ, and have almost unlimited power and zero oversight from a government who believe that “protecting the borders” is more important than law.
So, what we have here, is a Manager at INZ redrafting a circular, taking out the need to record Adverse Decisions on specialVisas, and replacing it with an instruction to NOT record the rational for turning down a visa, without discussion, without review, without proper process, and see if “people scream”.
Seriously? This is the kind of person who is making this level of decision?
So, what on earth is s61 anyway? What is all this about?
Section 61 refers to a Special Visa being granted. This is a Visa which legalises people such as over stayers, or people who would not normally be given a visa. It can be granted to anyone – regardless of the visa being applied for – temporary or residence visa, unless they are in the process of being deported. You cannot ask to be considered, and the decision to even consider anyone for a Section 61 Visa, let alone deciding whether to grant one, is entirely up to the Visa Officer.
You have also never had the right to be told the reasons behind the outcome of a decision. This is made clear in the Operations manual, and three circulars, dated April 2008 (Prior to the New Immigration Act 2009, so refers to Section 35a rather than Section 61), September 2010, and the recent update in November 2011.
The difference is that in the November 2011 circular, it expressly instructs staff:
9.
An immigration officer should not record any reasons or rationale for refusing to consider the request in either AMS notes or in the communication with the client. The requestor should be sent the template letter s61 Refuse to
consider. The immigration officer must complete the section 61 template by indicating they have refused to consider the request, then sign it and attach it to the file.
So we have gone from – the Immigrant has no right to be TOLD the reasons for the decision (which means it is still in the record and can be tracked by people such as the Ombudsman), to “don’t write it down so that no one can ever find the reasons, and kick our arses over it”.
As No Right Turn says -
All-up, we have a government department which has acted deliberately to thwart judicial and Ombudsman oversight, for reasons of its own convenience, apparently in violation of New Zealand law. The question is whether the Minister will act – or whether he will effectively endorse this situation with his silence.
The Minister, Nathan Guy, believes this is fair and right. Frankly – it stinks.
INZ to be given new secrecy powers – WTF?
This was actually hidden away on the stuff website back on the 17th February, Somewhere where most people would never see it. Which I personally believe was done entirely on purpose.
The reason I have not published this blog until now is that I knew we had one more visa application to go – my brother’s IRRV / Permanent Residency application, and I wanted to post nothing that could possibly compromise that visa. Yes – I am that paranoid when it comes to dealing with INZ. Now that we have the visa – I feel safe to publish.
So what is going on?
Well, INZ staff have been given the power to keep secret the reason for denying discretionary visas.
Immigration officers have been instructed to hide their reasons for refusing discretionary visas for fear they will be open to legal action.
Section 61 of the Immigration Act allows officers to grant visitor, work, student, residential or limited visas in special cases.
The provision gives officers absolute discretion and is used in cases such as where someone has inadvertently overstayed or made an error on their immigration documents.
The section was reviewed last year and in November an internal circular was sent to staff saying: ”the rationale and reasons for the decision should not be recorded, either on the template, in the notes or in the communication with the client.”
Correspondence between officials who redrafted the section, released under the Official Information Act, show the Immigration Service wanted the requirement for including rationale removed.
”They strongly feel that including rationale just opens us up to the risk of judicial review and Ombudsman complaints.”
There was also concern making it mandatory to include rationales was ”likely to generate more work and complaints for the branches”.
So lets get this clear. Immigration New Zealand – who already have extraordinary levels of power to abuse the system they work with, want MORE power to hide behind, because too many people are making complaints. I cant help but wonder if that is the reason they have once again hidden the complaints process. I am damn sure it is.
Perhaps if they did their jobs properly, and stopped making the rules up as they go along, and ignoring the rules they don’t like – there would be less complaints. Its a staggering thought – but one that appears to elude many people.
However, not all staff were happy about removing rationale.
One official wrote: ”I’m not convinced Visa Services are completely comfortable with dropping it entirely”.”If everyone is happy for it to disappear, I’ll take it out entirely, but I’m not sure we want to go in that direction yet.”
Labour’s immigration spokeswoman Darien Fenton said decisions under section 61 could not be appealed but people had the right to complain to the Ombudsman.
”That right is essentially being removed because there will be no reason that can be traced or checked by the Ombudsman.
But the ombudsman doesn’t check anything anyway. They merely act as a secretarial service for INZ and pass on whatever information INZ tell them too. And besides, the Ombudsman, even if they did their job properly, can only “Investigate” procedural issues with your application. They cannot actually investigate the outcome of the application – I.e. if you get turned down for a Visa, they have no power to make INZ overturn the decision.
Decisions by the Immigration Service had been criticised in the past so it was important the integrity of officers could be guaranteed, she said.
”This is a matter of convenience and covering up of what needs to be a very transparent process for their own protection.”
Its not very often I agree with Darian Fenton – but she makes the point perfectly. Its a cover up. Pure and simple – and it stinks.
The Department of Labour’s general counsel George Mason said yesterday the Law Society’s immigration group had raised concerns about the decision to remove rationale.
”It’s a matter the department is currently discussing with the Ombudsman.,” he told Parliament’s transport and industrial relations select committee.
There was no legal requirement for immigration officers to record their reasons.
”But the points that have been raised… are being worked through in a couple of forums.”
Immigration Minister Nathan Guy said hiding rationale was not inappropriate for an agency charged with protecting New Zealand’s borders.
”Persons who are unlawfully in New Zealand can’t expect to be treated in the same way as those who lodge proper immigration applications.”
The Immigration Service was ”highly transparent”, he said.
Bollocks.
What would Nathan Guy know about how transparent INZ is or isn’t? (It’s not by the way – which is why we are plowing $95million into a new computer system to help them get with the 20th Century!) He hasn’t had to deal with the abusive behavior of some of the staff their, and their undying refusal to be open and transparent about a/ what they doing, b/ what information they want, and c/ what they are doing about it. They are so lacking in transparency that staff can tell you any old crap, and another member of staff can turn round and tell you that you shouldn’t believe everything you are told by INZ staff.
You couldn’t make it up – really!
I agree – people here unlawfully are different from those trying to wade through the system lawfully – except that many people are here unlawfully because INZ staff are incompetent, and force people to be illegal over-stayers because they do not know how to do their jobs.
It does not take skill to get a job at INZ. It does not take a great deal of training, and clearly it does not take a huge amount of intelligence, as many people can attest. To give people like that MORE power is absurd.
If INZ are so crap at their jobs they need a law change to give them the power to hide their decisions and thus cut complaints – Nathan Guy should be asking why. Not giving them more power when they clearly can’t handle the power they already have. Moreover – articles like this, while they are being written, are getting harder to find. Changes to Immigration Policy are being pushed through with barely a whisper of it making it into the papers.
We NEVER have to deal with Immigration New Zealand again.
On 2nd February 2004, we had our first correspondence from Immigration New Zealand (Then NZIS). That was a letter verifying an application had been received by my parents for a Long Term Business Visa. Mine and Hubby’s application wasn’t accepted till later that year, due to the changeover from the old General Skills List system to the current Skilled Migrant Category.
Today, 8 (very) long yrs and 25 days later, we finally the last Visa we ever need from Immigration New Zealand, the Permanent Residence Permit (IRRV) for my brother.
Other than getting visas transferred to new passports – which is purely a rubber stamp exercise (in return for some $$$ of course), we never have to apply to INZ again for anything. Once my Parents and Brother have been here another 3 years – they can of course apply for passports, but that has nothing to do with INZ.
Out of interest – the IRRV / Permanent Permit can actually be processed while you wait.
So I guess, finally, it’s over for us. It does seem a bit odd to be honest. After so long, and so much aggro, it seems strange that we will never have to deal with the nightmare bureaucracy again.
I don’t think it’s sunk in yet to be honest.
Picture Credit: James Hance – source of much awesomeness.
Report time – INZ Permanent & Long Term migration pt3
Filed under: Getting to New Zealand, Hubby's Views, Jobs & Work, Life in New Zealand
Last one out turn the lights off please.
The patterns part of the report again makes for some interesting reading and good analysis by DoL. Emigration & Immigration are both cyclical, effected by similar drivers and so on. An easy example is that when the exchange rate improves, immigration goes up. Those of you considering the move will know this yourselves as you deal with the lousy amount of NZ$ your currency will buy now. Many people simply cannot afford the move with the rate as it is. When the rate improves, more people can afford to move here.
The analysis for 2011 makes for stark reading.
Net migration for 2011 – 3,900.
Although I’m not surprised by that. With Christchurch being such a popular destination with Brits, throw in a couple of earth quakes and people think twice about emigrating in the first place. Plus there’s a big jump in Kiwi’s heading out of Christchurch to start afresh somewhere.
For the first time, we’ve got some good analysis of migration of Kiwi’s to Aus & elsewhere.
So while we have a big increase in Kiwi’s heading off to Aus in the past six years, compared to the preceding six years, we’ve have almost the same number of Kiwi’s fewer heading to places other than Aus.
DoL are keen to emphasise the big picture, that this is a cycle and so on. The statistics are being effected by Christchurch and NZ’s general economic outlook, whether we can pull out of the cycle as expected will be the interesting thing.
Report time – INZ Permanent & Long Term migration pt1
Filed under: Getting to New Zealand, Hubby's Views, Life in New Zealand, NZIS & Immigration issues
The Dept of Labour have come out with their annual PLT report covering 2011. You can find the original report here.
The funny thing is that I came across two news articles about this before I read the report .
1. Off to Oz Exodus at 11 year high @ the Herald
2. Aussie Drain Brain myth exposed also @ the Herald
Now at first glance I thought that the two different headlines can’t be right..
What the report is actually saying is that those leaving for Australia or elsewhere are broadly representative of all kiwis. Although when you delve into things, DoL/INZ didn’t do that part of research, it came from Kea – a Kiwi’s abroad group trying to encourage kiwi’s to return home or tub thump for kiwi companies while they are overseas.
So brain drain myth exposed!? I don’t think so. People are leaving – its just a broad cross section of Kiwis that are going, not just the brainiacs.
Where the wiggle room comes in is that DoL want us all to focus on the fact that the relative number of Kiwi’s going to Aus is smaller as a percentage of the overall population than in 1970. Our population has risen by 50% – despite INZ’s lacklustre (ie utterly pathetic) performance in really encouraging net migration as we’ve said before, yet the proportion of Kiwi’s going to Aus has dropped from 1.4% to 1%. So lets all focus on that it’s only 1% please.
And lets forget that 1% of 4.5m is 45,000 – while 1.4% of 3m is 42,000.
Oh dear.
And lets ignore the part of the official report that also says that Kiwi’s in Australia have a higher level of employment than the Aussie national average. And that Kiwi’s in the lower paid jobs earn over 20% more than their friends who stay in NZ. While the ‘average’ is that Kiwi’s in Australia earn 19% more than their friends at home in the same job. Business Week has a good summary of the salary aspects in quite plain $$ numbers.
There may not be a ‘brain drain’, there sure is a people drain though!
Did we say $75 Million???
Silly us, we meant $90.5 million.
There is no explanation as to why there is a difference.
Although I have to be honest – no matter whether this is scope creep or just a more honest number, it is probably money well worth spending. They cannot continue as they are with an antiquated system. But I doubt the increase in budget will actually end at 90.5 million.
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