Immigration New Zealand considers more visa outsourcing

Immigration New Zealand wants outsource more of its immigration applications even though there have been accusations that its office in Beijing has been handing out fraudulent student visas. There have also been revelations that the student visa branch in Palmerston North is little more than a rubber stamp factory.

Last month it was revealed that 279 visas had been issued fraudulently through Beijing to students coming to New Zealand. A letter has since been sent anonymously to Darien Fenton, industrial relations spokeswoman for Labour, in which it was claimed that most of the Chinese students had already had their visas stamped at the Palmerston North office.

Immigration Minister Nathan Guy said that he wants to outsource some of the lower-level visa applications. He added that Palmerston North was working well and managing to process around 50 per cent of applications in less than 48-hours.

Fenton described handing over more application processing to a third party as worrying. She also voiced her concerns over Mr Guy’s wish to do more processing online.

First leader Winston Peters has ordered an investigation into how visas are being processed in China. This includes the company employed by Immigration New Zealand to deal with the applications, VFS Global Services. Steve Stuart, head of Immigration New Zealand said VFS Global was supplying a valuable service and was a provider which had no power to actually approve visas.