Students still queuing through night for visas

Foreign students are still queuing through the night outside the Immigration Service in Christchurch - and braving drunken abuse - to get visas renewed.

It was reported last month that students were arriving at school exhausted after spending half the night queuing outside the service's Christchurch office, which has been handing out numbered tickets to the first 50 arrivals and telling the rest to return another day.

Two extra visa officers are now helping with the visa scramble, but students are still queuing from 4am to get visas processed.

Homestay mother Gail Dowgray said her Japanese boarder and a friend stood outside the office from 2.10am on Wednesday to be among the 50 seen by officers.

Within half an hour they were joined by up to 30 students and the cap of 50 was reached before 6am.

"To make matters worse, there were drunken youths threatening them," Ms Dowgray said.

"They felt quite worried, but were unable to move away because they didn't want to lose their place in line."

Christchurch interpreter Terri Hu McFedries said some students had resorted to paying others $20 to queue overnight in their place.

"It's so frustrating. There's a rush because everybody is trying to get their re-entry visa before they go home for Christmas."

Most queuing are short-term English language students applying to stay longer to do another course or to sort out re-entry visas so they can go home for Christmas and return next year.

English language school principal Lily Belabun said some students had to wait three or four days after their visas expired before seeing officers. "They were told to go away because they couldn't get far enough up the queue."

Immigration Service spokesman Ian Smith said too many students had left it until the last minute to apply and were queuing when they did not need to because resident returning visas could be processed by mail.

He said a third extra staff member would start work next week, and a fourth in January, but warned queues would remain until the service found a strategy for dealing with the surge in applications.

- NZPA

Herald feature: Immigration