exactly.. that's why you need to try several times until they put you in the queue. every time I call them, I also get this recording a lot of time.The above-detailed explanation is great but it did not work in my case- at the 13 the step (as mentioned above) the automated voice recording will apologize stating that the call cannot be transferred due to the huge volume of calls and that the caller can try calling some other times or visit the website to check the application status and the call gets disconnected. I tried over 20 times and each time, i ended up having mu call disconnected.
Another method is to connect the citizenship line instead of Immigration and then ask them to transfer you to the immigration line. I hope it will work