Long wait expected for migrants seeking resident visas

Visa applications are expected to flood in when the second phase of applications begins on March 1. Photo / 123rf

Nearly 11,000 people have applied for the first phase of the 2021 Resident Visa but it could take years to process all the applications.

The visa is meant to provide certainty for migrant workers.

The Immigration New Zealand website shows just 97 of the visas have been processed in the two weeks to December 14.

That means at the current rate it would take three years and eight months to process them all.

On its website, Immigration NZ says it's committed to processing the visa applications as quickly as possible and is expecting to process most of them within 12 months.

More applications are expected to flood in when the second phase of applications begins on March 1.

The National Party says the first fortnight of the 2021 Resident Visa has been a huge failure.

The visa is designed to provide certainty for migrant workers, and applications for the first phase opened on December 1.

Less than a hundred visas have been processed so far, from nearly 11,000 applications, after the IT system crashed.

National's immigration spokesperson, Erica Stanford, says Minister Kris Faafoi knew thousands of people would apply, so should've made sure the IT system could cope.

She says it wasn't and took days, and possibly thousands of dollars, to patch up.

Stanford says meanwhile, many migrants haven't had their visas processed as promised.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi says there were some initial technical issues, but that's now been fixed so he's confident processing will speed up.