Consequences of using (unlicensed) agents, friends or employers for visa applications.

The consequences of using unlicensed and non-professional assistance for visa applications is really becoming an issue with a much larger number of declines for mistakes on previous applications being seen already and government policy moving to actively prosecute agents and other parties involved in migrant exploitation. A recent Bill being introduced to Parliament is also reinforcing existing rules that visa applications made by unlicensed persons are not to be accepted by INZ and INZ fee increases meaning that declined visas are very expensive.

The Government changed the immigration instructions so that false information (including mistakes) on a temporary visa application will be reason for instant decline at the residence stage. Accordingly, INZ are pouncing on anything they can now so that they have as much scope as possible to decline future residence applications. By raising a PPI for everything possible now, a record is left on the applicant's INZ file for the next visa application which is used for an easy decline.

A good example is for recovery visas (special work visas for the North Island recovery work), where a very large number of subsequent AEWVs are being declined or PPI’d because the recovery visas were done by offshore agents or employers, and have a lot of mistakes in them. These issues were not always raised at the time of the recovery visa application, but the previous application was re-examined at the time of the AEWV application and then raised as a problem on the current work visa.

People are starting to pick up on this already it seems, and understand that the risks of using unlicensed persons to do visa applications are rather high if you have any aspirations of staying in New Zealand long term. An employer or friend may have good intentions to “help” you with your application, but in the end the risks are just not worth it. Encouraging migrants to use professional assistance rather than taking a DIY approach is the Government’s intention of course because professionally represented migrants, equals protected migrants and this reduces the risks of migrant exploitation.

When agents or other non-licensed persons have done the application, but have not been declared on it, migrants have been stopped from boarding their flights and their visas have been cancelled. An agent is not licensed to do visa applications, so would not be declared, but when an agent has illegally done an application on behalf of the applicant, INZ can still cancel the visa later. INZ has not cared much about this in the past, but recently they have identifed unlicensed visa work as a potential indicator of exploitation.

It is natural for non-professionals to make quite simple mistakes in the application and that it is non-professionals who are most likely to be involved in exploitation. Until recently mistakes were not much a problem usually because there was the defence of having no mens rea (intention) for mistakes or imperfect docuements, which would mean that it could not be deemed to be an offense. However, this defence was recently removed for residence visa assessments so even an innocent mistake will be treated as if it were intentional.

While this applies to everyone equally, the purpose of this change was to remove any possibility of using the excuse that "my employer or offshore agent did my application and I didn't know about it". This is your responsibility regardless of who did the application on your behalf. It also means that the visa pathway cannot include a dodgy start but needs to be done right from the beginning. The only way that an applicant can have some chance of redress is to use a licensed professional.