Some migrants already in the country are stuck in drawn-out struggles for residency, and even the ability to practice their jobs, and they claim New Zealand's reputation on the world stage is floundering.
Last week the Government announced in October, simplified pathways to residency will be implemented, which former Immigration Minister Michael Wood said will "attract and retain skilled migrants".
Noel Ballantyne moved to New Zealand from Northern Ireland in 2018 to work as a truck driver but now says that "people with skills will be reluctant to come to New Zealand".
Kasey arrived in New Zealand in February to practice as a veterinarian but says that if she had known how much of a struggle the move would prove to be, she probably wouldn't have left Malaysia.
Newshub Nation spoke to them to hear their stories.
In 2018, Ballantyne arrived in Christchurch to work as a class-five truck driver after seeing demand for skilled truck drivers on Immigration New Zealand's (INZ) website.
Ballantyne's job was on the high priority list, and he expected to have residence within the 30 months promised with the $1800 Work to Residence visa.
However, when the Covid-19 pandemic struck, INZ became inundated and sluggish.
Ballantyne said there were "a lot of reports of reduced staff numbers for processing times".
"There were quite a lot of people from my company that were trying to make contact with INZ to get clarity that there weren't going to be any issues for getting our visas processed."
Ballantyne experienced "major problems even trying to get the simple answers off INZ".
Even though he lodged his residency paperwork in February 2020, INZ was unable to process it before his initial visa ran out.
"They actually told me that I'd need to apply for another visa to stay in the country, to apply for the whole residency visa again, to pay another $2,500, even though I had a fully lodged application with them."
As November 2021 approached, and Ballantyne's visa was due to run out, he ended up leaving New Zealand.
"I actually had made a hard decision that I wasn't going to process another application.
"I wasn't going to pay any more money, especially when they had a fully legitimate legal application put into the system."
Even though there was a skills shortage, Ballantyne said he and other immigrant workers he knew "were just ignored".
"It just doesn't make any sense to me."
He said it was particularly painful because, through Covid, truckers like him had been "working 70-hour weeks to keep the country moving".
For Ballantyne, it felt like INZ "just wanted more money from immigrants without giving out the visa or, say, processing the readily lodged residency visa".
Ballantyne recalled two immigrants who were in similar situations and had their residency requests processed after resubmitting them, and paying for the entire process again.
Once back in the UK, Ballantyne was contacted in May 2022 and told there was a problem with the initial residency visa he had submitted: he was no longer in New Zealand and no longer had a job in New Zealand, though he did have an open job offer at the trucking company in Christchurch he had been working for.
Ballantyne was told in an email from INZ "to meet the requirements you must be currently holding a valid WTR (work to residence) work visa".
But, his original 30 month WTR visa had expired before his residency application could be processed, even though it had been submitted in good time.
After attempting to fight the injustice from the UK, Ballantyne came back to New Zealand in February and is again at the very beginning of the entire pathway to residency.
"I still have to do two years and then apply and pay thousands more for a residency visa.
"I've got nowhere within five years and I've achieved nothing and I'm back at square one again."
Ballantyne estimates he's spent between $15 and $20 thousand on the process so far, part of which has been the unnecessary flights back to the UK to avoid becoming an illegal migrant.
"I complied with all the rules and regulations for three years while being in New Zealand, but INZ have changed the goalposts so many times.
"I'm not prepared to pay thousands more for something that I should've had back in 2021," Ballantyne said.
Ballantyne loves New Zealand and wants to stay here.
He said that the "people are very laid back and the country is beautiful.
"It's just unfortunate about the Government, the problems".
Kasey's battle has been less drawn-out but her story illustrates that there are still problems for skilled migrants attempting to work in New Zealand.
Kasey - not her real name - was a practising soft-tissue veterinary surgeon in Malaysia with seven years experience in the sector before she decided to come to New Zealand after seeing the country was facing a huge shortage of staff.
She arrived in New Zealand in February this year and said "The reason I wanted to be here is because it was a childhood dream of mine".
"Back in the 80s and 90s in Malaysia we used to get dairy farm advertisements and I just fell in love with New Zealand".
She said that a key factor drawing her to New Zealand was the country's great reputation for providing equal opportunities for all races.
However, Kasey's dream of working in New Zealand was immediately off to a rocky start.
"The initial stages were actually pretty tiring, so at some point I'd thought of giving up because it was so hard.
"It took me almost eight months to get here prior to getting the visa because I needed to get myself registered with the veterinary council and for that, I needed to sit the first part of an examination."
Once she was registered as a limited registered veterinarian, she was able to apply for jobs in New Zealand, however, her registration being limited made it very difficult to find a job.
On top of this, she had to quit her job in Malaysia first before coming to New Zealand, "which meant eight months of unemployment, so that's a lot of money".
"The whole migration trip was really exhausting".
Kasey eventually found a clinic willing to take her on and was thus able to begin her work to residency application, but the work she is able to do with her limited registration is only at a graduate level.
"I've got another year to go before I get fully registered under the New Zealand Veterinary Council."
Though she is now working in New Zealand, because her registration is limited, she is being treated as though she were a fresh graduate, even though she has seven years of experience.
Kasey feels as though she is "starting over again" and fears that being unable to practice all of the skills she had developed over seven years will leave her rusty by the time she sits her examination to become fully registered.
"Being a surgeon, you need to be continuously practising, you know, otherwise you just lose everything."
Kasey said that she wishes "the process would be fairly straightforward and much easier".
She wants INZ to look into their relationship with the NZ Veterinary Council and streamline the pathway to becoming fully registered.
"You've got a very high demand for veterinarians and you don't have the supply in the country," she said, "but you're not making it easy for those you bring in from outside the country".
"On top of that, with this limited registration, you've still got a wait, so I'm still not filling the vacancies."
While there is a path straight to residency available for Kasey, it will cost about $4000 dollars, money she doesn't have after spending so much getting here in the first place and now being on lower wages than expected due to her limited veterinarian registration.
Asked whether she would make the same decision to come to New Zealand if she knew how hard it was going to be, Kasey said "I probably wouldn't have because it's a lot of money, a lot of time wasted and eight months of unemployment on top of that".
Ballantyne said that he "would just like to see that immigrants are treated fairly because I've known so many families that have come out here and given up everything, spent tens of thousands to get here, just to be treated disgracefully".
"People with skills will be reluctant to come to New Zealand given the way INZ and the Labour government have treated people."
This reputational harm is yet to play out in the numbers, with StatsNZ provisional data showing in the March 2023 year, there was a net gain of 88,900 non-New Zealand citizens migrating here and a net loss of 23,500 New Zealand citizens.
However, with more and more people migrating to New Zealand the importance of systems that can adequately process cases like Ballantynes and ensure people like Kasey can actually use their skills is more important than ever.
INZ was approached for comment and said:
"We are working hard to continually improve our processing times and ensure our applicants have a good customer experience.
"Immigration New Zealand (INZ) visa processing timeframes are based on how long it takes for most applications in that category to be assessed.
"Where an applicant has not provided all the relevant information or further information or assessment is needed to determine they meet health and character requirements, this can impact the time it takes for us to make a decision.
"INZ has limited control over how long it takes for an applicant or a third party to provide additional information, which makes it difficult to give average processing times for applications that aren’t straightforward.
"The new Skilled Migrant Category introduces a simplified points system and aims to process straight-forward applications that have all the required information within six to eight weeks.
"The Immigration New Zealand website remains the best place for up-to-date information on processing times: How long it takes to process an application | Immigration New Zealand."
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