Standing in immigration queues can be frustrating at the best of times. But when you’re an aid worker on a tourist visa there’s also always a sinking feeling that this might be the time when a vigilant immigration officer decides to ask why you’ve been visiting the country so regularly for the past six months.

Is your feigned attempt at enthusiasm for their cultural treasures going to be enough to be let back in, or will jetlag fail you? It is often the case that there is a tacit understanding as to what you’re really doing. But in some countries, without a credible justification, your chances of re-entry can be slim and many of us have stories of packing bags for colleagues who never made it back into a country.

With migration being one of the biggest humanitarian and development challenges at the moment, countless international organisations are calling for improved rights for displaced persons who find themselves stranded at land borders or unable to obtain valid travel documents. But ironically, many of the same humanitarian organisations ignore the immigration rules they purport to defend, through the treatment of their own employees.

Most often this occurs in the field and there are many reasons why NGOs ask or expect expatriate staff to work in a legal limbo – from the complexities of local laws to shrinking space for humanitarian work globally.

But it does have consequences for individual staff members and their families, organisational reputation and the perception of humanitarian work which, amid peacekeeper sex abuse scandals and a less than enthusiastic world humanitarian summit, is badly in need of some good PR.

Very often visa policies or work permits are an after-thought of a recruitment process; it is just kind of assumed that the successful candidate can get a visa to enter a country either prior to entry or on arrival. UN agencies have agreements with host governments and can issue laissez-passer documents (a UN travel document) but the status of INGOs varies considerably. It’s hard to predict what department they may fall under, while in other instances INGOs might be based in a neighbouring country and working remotely. As geographic and legal scope gets more complicated so too does the status of international employees.

We often see governments competing to have private sector organisations based in their country for the tax revenue and their boost to local business, yet the arrival of INGOs can be negatively perceived due to the attention they bring to human rights issues. Lebanon even cracked down on NGO staff working on tourist visas as part of its effort to reduce the number of refugees in its territory.

Stalling visa processes, or restricting the number of international staff to a ratio of local staff, is often part of a wider array of restrictions on NGOs, with local NGOs facing even greater limitations on funding as is the case in Ethiopia.

It is common to find NGO staff and consultants working on tourist visas, even for prolonged periods. As one former HR manager for an INGO explained: “We had to regularly take calculated risks that our staff could stay on tourist visas or otherwise work illegally in order to keep operating. The problem is, if all expatriate staff were to be working legally, in many countries they would then be forced to pay tax, social security and other insurances … however the NGO community as a whole could do a lot more to ensure these issues don’t arise, and work to get in place agreements with host governments to allow our staff to work legally and move freely”.

A recent vox pop conducted on the Fifty Shades of Aid Facebook group also highlighted that for many aid workers, being employed without a residence or work permit is a frequent occurrence.

There may be times when the humanitarian imperative demands that visa rules be overlooked to save lives – in the case of a tsunami or earthquake it might be impractical to wait for a visa when people are in urgent need of assistance. But affected countries such as Nepal claim they have lost income from foreign workers not paying work permit dues, not to mention lost taxation income that can contribute to developing country economies.

For staff with children and partners there are additional barriers as working on a tourist visa is not always conducive to enrolling children into school, obtaining a driver’s licence or opening a bank account.

Visa rules may be opaque and burdensome, but where NGOs try and take shortcuts, this is just a bigger indicator of the organisation’s poor links with host governments and a weak HR department.

In an era of doing business differently, reviewing the organisational practices that have become entrenched in INGO work might not be the stuff of world humanitarian summits but goes to the heart of practising what we preach. A first start would be clearer organisational guidelines that set out rights and responsibilities for staff regarding work permits so people know what to expect before they apply for a job including options if permits are denied or cancelled. Secondly, INGOs can use collective avenues such as NGO forums to discuss these issues with host governments and set in place agreements that were noted by the former HR manager above as very often lacking. Finally the wider humanitarian community including donors may need to balance the additional costs of taxation, social security and other insurances against the potential lost revenue to host governments and face up to the possible increased cost of doing business according to immigration regulations.

Melissa Phillips is an independent migration researcher who is affiliated with the University of Melbourne.