Kerre Woodham: Overstayers and fudged immigration promises

The Government is cracking down on serious immigration breaches. It's announced it will strengthen deportation settings on the same day that Immigration New Zealand revealed there are more than 20,000 people who have overstayed their visa. Immigration Minister Erica Stanford says there are gaps in the current system. For example, under the current rules, someone who commits a serious crime can't be liable for deportation if they've held a residence visa for more than 10 years. Stanford says they're fixing that. Where migrants don't follow the conditions of their visa, she says, I've made it clear to Immigration New Zealand compliance and enforcement actions are a priority.  

Immigration New Zealand said on Thursday that as of July 1, there were around 20,980 people, call it 21,000 people, in New Zealand who have overstayed their visa. This is the first estimate to be carried out using a new methodology, which the agency believes has better accuracy than the previous one used in 2017. From what I understand, Immigration, New Zealand was going through a major overhaul of its computer systems, so there will be new methodology and more accurate numbers. So in terms of nationalities, there are 2,599 individuals from Tonga who are believed to be overstayers. Remember the Tongan under 21 rugby team who were on tour here in 2003? Almost half the team failed to show when the 30 strong squad checked in for their flight home. And I don't think many of them were found. So for 22 years, these young men have grown into middle-aged men and have been living and working in New Zealand. There were 2,577 from China, 2,213 from the US, which was a bit of a head scratcher for most of us.  

The Greens have called for an amnesty for overstayers. They've long called for amnesties – they think there should be one every year just to sort of tidy things up, if you will. And better residency pathways for migrants, and they really want the Government to announce on this time. And do you know what, I think they should. Because if you look back to what a mess immigration New Zealand was, let me take you back to the bad old days. Iain Lees-Galloway was Minister for Immigration and was failing miserably in that job. It was a mess. Labour and New Zealand First had campaigned, saying we're going to restrict the number of migrants coming to New Zealand. It's going to be a New Zealand first, kind of a country, and we're going to cut the number of migrants. But when they came in, they realised just how important overseas labour is, globally and in New Zealand. If you turned off the flow of migrants coming into the country there'd be a big hit to Kiwi businesses, the profit margins of employers, to New Zealand's economic performance overall.  

So once they formed their coalition government, they thought, oh bloody hell no, we can't really make good on that. What are we going to do? So they decided to pull the handbrake on the number of residency applications that could be approved, but they increased the number of people on temporary visas. People on temporary visas can apply to become residents, so there were more and more people joining the residency queue, and it got bigger and bigger and bigger. In 2020, there were 38,787 skilled migrant applications stuck in the residency queue. When Labour took office with New Zealand First, there was just 10,000.  So that you had people coming in who were on temporary visas and then got stuck because they couldn't apply for residency. You had skilled migrants and with people on the low wage all applying, none of them given priority. Then they created two queues, the priority and the non-priority, because they realised that doctors and skilled engineers were leaving the country because it was just taking too long. All politicians do this. You make a promise, you get in and you realise that it's unsustainable, so you just have to try and fudge it.  

So when you have been waiting and waiting and waiting for years and years and years, I can kind of understand where there might be a few overstayers. You've made a life for yourself, you're confident that you'll be accepted if and when Immigration New Zealand gets around to processing your application, and in the meantime, life goes on. And all of a sudden you find that you're an overstayer. I can kind of see how it happens.  

So I'd be for an amnesty and anybody who's kept their nose clean, who has been working, who has been living an exemplary life. Let them stay. Anyone who so much as shoplifted a packet of chewing gum – they can go back from whence they came, but anybody else of these overstayers, I'd say give them a chance. It was Immigration New Zealand from start to finish who was in chaos. Part of that was to do with an incompetent minister, or an incompetent series of ministers, part of that was to do with unsustainable election promises that they then had to fudge. And part of that is to do, I think, with the change over to a new computing system which caused unconscionable delays for people who are trying to get residency. You might know more about it than I if you were one of those who was desperately waiting for Immigration to process whatever application you might have had in force. So I would love to hear from you if you have had experience of dealing with Immigration New Zealand. 

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