Home Affairs says it is winning battle against long queues

Home affairs reports on progress in cutting queues

IOL | 16 Nov 2022

Cape Town - While the portfolio committee on Home Affairs has welcomed progress made in the fight against long queues at Home Affairs offices through the Branch Appointment Booking System (Babs), they say more still needs to be done.

The department launched the system in June, in an effort to improve service delivery to clients.

Babs is currently active in 163 front offices.

By the end of the November it was expected that all modernised offices would have a booking system.

The department also expanded its footprint and entered public-private partnership with banks, with 27 bank branches currently operational and available to service Home Affairs clients.

The department said it envisaged rolling out the service to a further 43 sites once partnership agreements were signed.

Department deputy director-general for institutional planning and support, Thulani Mavuso, said: “The first intervention we made that is showing great success is Babs.

“This is currently running on a hybrid model. There has been a lot (more) positive feedback from clients than negatives with the system. For now the booking system is just for ID smart cards and passports.

“It has seen the reduction of queues in certain offices and improved client satisfaction; many clients have communicated this via social media and direct emails to the department.”

He said over 200 000 clients have used the booking system since June 1.

ANC MP Mathedi Moleka said many offices were still faced with long queues and she hoped this would improve soon.

Moleka suggested that mobile units return for the elderly for the collection of smart cards as many travel long distances for collection.

“Otherwise the progress made is welcomed and hopefully remaining issues will be attended to as a matter of urgency.”

DA MP Adrian Roos said that Babs was great but his concern was that sometimes it was over subscribed.

“I remember in Somerset West there were few people who had an appointment at the same time.

“There was also a matter of a long queue this other time while the Babs terminal was empty.

“Something must also be done for the disadvantaged people who don’t have the internet or smart phones, so that they (can) book on this booking system.”

www.samigration.com

Digital data collection, Geospatial technology to be used for next Census: Ministry of Home Affairs

Digital data collection, Geospatial technology to be used for next Census: Ministry of Home Affairs

Devdiscourse | 16 Nov 2022

Ministry of Home Affairs informed that it will opt for the latest technologies in the next census. The technologies that will be used in the next census include digital data collection, Census Management and Monitoring System, and a Code Directory Geospatial technology.

igital data collection, Census Management and Monitoring System, Code Directory Geospatial technology and other latest technologies will be used for the next Census, said the Ministry of Home Affairs report released on Monday. The MHA Annual report 2021-22 read that Data collection in the forthcoming Census will be done digitally. An enumerator would collect and submit data directly through Mobile App, using her or his smartphone. The provision of a paper schedule is also kept in case of connectivity issues. In addition to this, it is also planned to have an online option for self-enumeration during both the phases of the Census i.e. House listing and Housing Census and Population Enumeration.

Enumerators are to be incentivized to use their own smartphone for the collection of data, it read. It further read that Mobile Apps developed in-house for the collection of data through Smartphones have been rigorously tested during the postponed period of the Census and have been further updated and improved.

The Census Management & Monitoring System (CMMS) Portal developed for the management and monitoring of various Census-related activities has been further improved with additional functionalities. The portal would be used for the management and monitoring of various Census activities like the appointment of Census functionaries including Enumerators and Supervisors and allocation of work, organization of training for Census officials, the progress of work in the field by each enumerator on a real-time basis, auto-generation of some Census Records/Abstracts, processing for payment of training allowances/ honorarium to Census functionaries etc. A Code Directory to be used by the enumerators in the field to codify descriptive responses which can cut short the time lag for the release of Census data, resulting in fast processing and release of data.

Several new initiatives have been taken towards facilitating Census operations using advanced Geospatial technology. The Pre-Census mapping activities include the preparation and updating of maps showing administrative units of the States/UTs, Districts, Sub-districts, Villages, Towns and Wards within Towns to ensure proper coverage of the entire geographical area of the country. Further, efforts are being made for the dissemination of Census results through web-based interactive maps. Preparatory work in this direction has already been initiated. 

www.samigration.com


‘A state of disrepair’: Home affairs minister slams immigration system

‘A state of disrepair’: Home affairs minister slams immigration system

The Age | 16 Nov 2022

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has declared Australia’s migration system is broken and is being exploited by overseas criminals, and has flagged an independent inquiry to examine revelations of widespread visa rorting linked to sex trafficking, foreign worker exploitation and drug crime.

In her strongest comments yet about the failings in the system, O’Neil blamed her predecessor, Liberal Peter Dutton, and revealed she had received expert advice that “tens of thousands of people” might be unlawfully in Australia, including many who are exploited foreign workers.

“We’ve ended up with a system where there’s massive visa queues and where the people who actually legitimately want to use the system can’t properly use it. And yet criminals who want to bring people into the country as slaves are able to somehow do it,” O’Neil said.

“We’ve got to change the way that this system operates.”

O’Neil made the comments after she was privately briefed by Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw and Border Force commissioner Michael Outram in response to a series of reports in this masthead about organised crime exploitation of the visa system.

O’Neil was responding to Trafficked, a project led by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, 60 Minutes and Stan’s Revealed documentary program which casts a light on visa rorting, sex trafficking and foreign worker exploitation in Australia. Among the reports was that of a human trafficking boss who entered Australia in 2014 and built a criminal underground sex empire despite having previously been jailed in the UK for similar offending.

“The migration system is in a state of disrepair,” said O’Neil said, blaming Dutton, now the opposition leader, for the problems.

The Trafficked “investigation has uncovered, repulsive criminal wrongdoing in our country”, she said. “There’s some systemic issues here about the way that our migration system has been run down … creating direct criminal conduct in our country and putting Australians in danger.”

The minister said it was vital to get “independent eyes on what’s happened here”. She wanted “answers to why various law enforcement bodies within the Australian government had information that was needed to prevent harm occurring in the Australian community, and that information didn’t get to the right people at the right time”.

O’Neil has already commissioned a review of how problems in the migration system – including huge backlogs in visa processing – are denying Australia access to desperately needed foreign skilled workers.

Trafficked has revealed how state and federal agencies have spent years issuing confidential warnings of migration rorting, involving syndicates gaming the visa system to bring criminals or exploited workers into Australia. This is facilitated by networks of corrupt federal government licensed migration agents, education colleges, fixers and people who rort the English language test.

Border security failures enabled human trafficking boss Binjun Xie to allegedly set up an underground sex network across Australia, and authorities have also uncovered repeated rorting of visa streams by Vietnamese cannabis crop producers and traffickers in Australia.

O’Neil said the revelations had highlighted “the failure of our visa system” as well as “dodgy educational institutions that are clearly set up as fronts to bring people into the country, some of whom go on to commit crimes”.

“And the question is, why was this problem let run for so long?”

“There are systemic problems ... It’s not about a bad apple here or there, but in fact this interaction between education providers, between visa systems that aren’t working properly and between migration agents, who are not properly regulated. There is a real problem here and that’s why I think this needs to be properly looked at and properly addressed.

“Criminals are coming into our country operating with impunity and no one’s doing anything about it.

“The expert evidence does suggest that during that nine years that the Coalition was in power, literally tens of thousands of people came into our country. They might be exploited farm workers, they might be women who are trapped in sexual slavery. The human consequences of these problems are enormous, and we’ve got to change the way that this system operates so we can have a properly run migration system.”

In a statement, Dutton said he had “zero tolerance when it comes to any attempt to exploit our visa system and vulnerable individuals”.

“As minister for immigration and border protection, I oversaw establishment of Taskforce Cadena … which specifically detects and disrupts criminal syndicates who seek to profit off vulnerable foreign workers,” he said.

He said he would support any further measures “to combat visa fraud within the Australian migration system”.

www.samigration.com

Foreigners' arrival in India took big hit in 2021: MHA

Foreigners' arrival in India took big hit in 2021: MHA

DHNS New Dehli | 16 Nov 2022

Foreigners' arrival in India dipped by more than half in 2021 compared to 2020 when Covid-19 was at peak, if one goes by the annual reports of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). The figures are more dismal if one takes the 2019 figures, as last year's figure is just around 15 per cent.

The MHA annual report for 2021-22 showed that 15.24 lakh foreigners visited India between January and December of 2021 as against 32.79 lakh reported between April and December of 2020 in the 2020-21 annual report. The figures for 2019, the pre-Covid period was 1.09 crore, the 2019-20 annual report showed.

The latest annual report showed that the United States (4.29 lakh) topped the maximum number of foreigners who visited India in 2021 followed by Bangladesh (2.4 lakh), United Kingdom (1.64 lakh), Canada (80,437), Nepal (52,544), Afghanistan (36,451), Australia (33,864), Germany (33,772), Portugal (32,064) and France (30,374).

These 10 countries accounted for 74.39 per cent of the total arrival of foreigners during 2021 while the rest of the countries accounted for 25.61 per cent of total incoming traffic of foreigners.

"Owing to the situation arising out of Covid-19 pandemic and in order to control its spread, the MHA took a series of steps to curtail the inward/outward movement of international passengers (both foreigners as well as Indians) in a calibrated manner since February 2020. However, with the phased unlocking in India, the Centre has been relaxing the visa and travel restrictions in a phased manner since May 2020," the annual report said.

In March last year, the MHA had also restored the e-Visa regime with all the sub-categories for the nationals of 156 countries. 

On deportation, the report said 821 foreigners were deported last year by the Foreigners Regional Registration Officers (FRROs). Most of the deported foreigners belonged to Nigeria (339), followed by Bangladesh (246) and Afghanistan (105), mirroring the 2019 trend.

In 2020 between April and December, 258 foreigners were deported and most of them belonged to Bangladesh (113), followed by Afghanistan (33) and Kyrgyzstan (22).

In 2019, India deported 1,233 foreigners and most of them belonged to Nigeria (547), followed by Bangladesh (230) and Afghanistan (94).

The 2021-22 annual report also showed that 2,439 Long Term Visas (LTV) have been granted by MHA for minority communities from Pakistan (2193), Afghanistan (237) and Bangladesh (9).

Besides, nine Pakistani civil prisoners and 15 Pakistani fishermen, who had completed their sentences, were repatriated to Pakistan while eight Indian civil prisoners and 20 Indian fishermen have been repatriated to India. 

Overseas student visas entering a new phase

Overseas student visas entering a new phase

Independent Australia | 16 November 2022

Home Affairs is desperately trying to cope with a huge surge in overseas student visa applications, many lured by the prospect of unlimited work rights. Dr Abul Rizvi reports.

AFTER FORMER Prime Minister Scott Morrison famously told temporary entrants in Australia to ‘go home’, denied most universities JobKeeper and denied any real support for temporary entrants who were stuck in Australia, many commentators considered Australia would struggle to attract overseas students once the pandemic was over.

Those commentators failed to take into account the attraction of unlimited work rights for students that former Immigration Minister Alex Hawke would subsequently provide. While Hawke’s policy would trash the reputation of Australia’s international education industry, it would also generate a massive increase in offshore student visa applications from students more interested in work than study.

Since international borders reopened, student arrivals and departures have accelerated quickly.

The 97,350 excess of student arrivals over departures in the period December 2021 to March 2022 was to be expected given the number of students that had been prevented entry during the pandemic. While there is a traditional net outflow of students in June, this did not happen in June 2022 — there was instead a small excess of arrivals over departures.

There was the traditional excess of student arrivals over departures in July and August 2022 and a non-traditional excess of student arrivals in September 2022 — traditionally a month when there is an excess of departures over arrivals.

Offshore applications and grant rates

But movements data can often disguise what is really happening. Offshore visa application numbers give us a better indication of the level of interest in studying/working in Australia while grant rates tell us how the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is managing the caseload.

Offshore student visa applications vary considerably from month to month. June is traditionally a strong month for offshore student visa applications while July, August and September are traditionally low application months.

In 2022, offshore student applications in June, July, August and September set new records by a significant margin.

In June 2022, there were 42,700 offshore student visa applications with the next highest number of June applications being 34,343 in June of 2018. In July 2022, there were 30,801 offshore student applications with the next highest July figure being 25,152 in 2019.

In August 2022, there were 25,580 offshore student applications with the next highest August figure being 19,201 in 2018. In September 2022, there were 24,344 offshore student applications with the next highest September figure being 18,142 in 2018.

In every month from June to September 2022, the number of offshore student visa applications has exceeded the previous record for that month by at least 5,000.

But this isn’t converting to similar records of offshore student visa grants because grant rates have fallen significantly, particularly in September.

It is likely that the lower grant rates are partly due to the DHA finding increased levels of fraud in the caseload as well as a shift in source countries. DHA may also be making greater use of the “genuine temporary entry” requirement as a basis to refuse applications.

For a department under severe resource pressure as well as pressure to speed up processing, a large caseload with low grant rates due to either fraud or use of a subjective criteria like “genuine temporary entry” represents a major waste of resources. DHA desperately needs to find a different way to manage the offshore student visa caseload.

It may be hoping the recently announced review of the migration system may find a solution. In this regard, the Albanese Government has announced Australia will return to restricted work rights for overseas students from 1 July 2023.

That is the right thing to do if we want our international education industry to focus on the delivery of quality education. But there needs to be a clear transition plan that alerts students and agents to the change, explains how limited work rights will be enforced and helps students who have become reliant on unlimited work rights to manage the transition.

www.samigration.com