Visa system outages leaves people in 'very stressful situation' - immigration adviser

Visa system outages have left travellers and relatives of New Zealanders "intensely stressed" and out of pocket, according to an immigration adviser.

Immigration New Zealand's online platform was overwhelmed by the number of people applying before visa fees increased on Tuesday.

Adviser Katy Armstrong said problems started last week with online users struggling to get into applications to submit them, or even seeing them disappear from view.

It was a predictable surge, she said, and partners of New Zealanders would be particularly badly affected by missing the deadline.

"Let's face it, it's not Taylor Swift tickets - this is about people's lives. Migrants are in a very stressful situation.

"Someone who managed to get their application in for partnership successfully, let's say [Monday] night, before 11.59pm was paying $2750 for a residence application. If they did it after midnight, if they missed that, then it's more than $5000 ($5360).

"I would have thought that just as they were announcing in August that the fees would increase, they would have absolutely made sure that there was capacity in the system. They should have been able to predict that there would be heavy usage, and therefore [done] whatever it took to make sure it didn't crash."

Having gone through similar issues with previous 'deadline' events with INZ, such as the system failure when applications opened for the 2021 fast-track residence visa, she said her office was prepared for problems.

It would be harder for someone filling out their own application - INZ would advise, 'try another browser', but it was not working on any browser.

"We've walked this walk before, so you could say we're a little bit thick-skinned on it, but it is intensely stressful," she said.

"If you're managing your elderly parent application, or a partner of a New Zealander, or you're living in some far-flung country and you're trying to lodge this online, you don't necessarily know that you've got to suddenly download Microsoft Edge. Some of our clients wouldn't know what Microsoft Edge is.

"And I find the communications from Immigration New Zealand always really difficult to accept because they'll say things you know, 'we did give you lots of advance notice of the change', and that's true, we did know about the changes. But, there's theory, and then there's real life. Real life means that some people just could not get in line to put their applications in early."

Some were waiting for medical assessments, police certificates, or English tests - which became booked out after the fee increase announcement, Armstrong said.

Her next concern was that waiting times for visas would now be affected by the high volumes of applications submitted during the last few weeks to avoid paying higher fees.

Stress and mental health issues were so high that she saw care providers now offering services specifically for migrants.

"Mental health practitioners who list help with, you know, relationship or workplace stress, now have migration-related stress as one of their specialities. So I think it tells us quite a lot about what migrants go through, and they don't need to have unnecessary stress when we've got $90 million systems."

Immigration New Zealand (INZ) had said the problems with the online system had been resolved on Monday when it was still glitching, she said, adding further frustration.

RNZ asked the agency what time the system was working without fault again, and how many people missed out on submitting their applications as a result before the price increase.

In a written statement, INZ director of online services Katy MacLeod said Monday was one of its busiest days, with three times the regular traffic.

"Once alerted to the issues, INZ placed a banner on the website advising customers that the issue was impacting visa application types on the Immigration Online system, and directed customers to the Enhanced Immigration Online system if they were applying for visitor visas. We acknowledge that some customers may not have been able to submit their applications yesterday, and we apologise for the disruption.

"We communicated with stakeholders and customers well in advance that the government would be increasing visa fees and levies on 1 October 2024, and customers would need to submit complete applications before this date, otherwise they would need to pay the new fee."

Immigration New Zealand did not say how many people were affected.