Erica Stanford’s bill would extend the ability to deport those convicted of serious crimes, while also increasing penalties for migrant exploitation, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin.
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Stronger deportation powers signalled
Immigration minister Erica Stanford has unveiled plans to expand when people convicted of serious crimes can be deported, as part of a wider immigration overhaul. A forthcoming bill would allow deportation of residence-class visa holders for offences like murder, manslaughter and sexual violence, even if they’ve lived in New Zealand for up to 20 years. The current threshold is 10 years.
The bill also widens liability to cover false or misleading information, historic pre-arrival offending, and visas granted in error, and lets officials serve deportation notices electronically. Penalties for migrant exploitation would rise from seven to 10 years’ imprisonment, reports Stuff’s Bridie Witton.
New overstayer estimates
Yesterday also saw Immigration NZ release of its first overstayer estimate using a new, more accurate methodology, reports Jamie Ensor of the NZ Herald. The agency puts the number at about 20,980 as at 1 July, with the largest nationality groups being Tonga, China and the US, with Samoa, India, Great Britain, the Philippines, Malaysia, Canada and Germany rounding out a top 10 that accounts for 70% of the total. Most are believed to have overstayed visitor visas; smaller cohorts hold expired work or student visas. The Greens have seized on the figures to revive calls for an overstayer amnesty and more pathways to residence, arguing many are settled, contributing members of their communities who are especially vulnerable to exploitation without lawful status.
The children left in limbo
Absent from today’s announcements was any solution for New Zealand-born children of overstayers who come of age without citizenship, work rights or access to basic services. The issue burst into view in February with the case of 18-year-old Daman Kumar, who was threatened with deportation to India despite having lived here all his life; he ultimately received residency after ministerial intervention.
Lawyers and advocates believe there are hundreds more in the same predicament. The root cause is a 2006 law change that removed automatic birthright citizenship; the first cohort born after that change are now 19. Whereas Australia and the UK provide citizenship to children of overstayers after 10 years’ residence, New Zealand’s rules are unusually strict, making us an international outlier. The children’s commissioner is now probing whether the regime breaches the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, reports Stuff’s Steve Kilgallon, who published a two-part, in-depth look at the issue earlier this year.
Immigration officials say they take a pragmatic, case-by-case approach, but lawyers say there is often no pathway to residence without ministers using their discretion, as in the case of Kumar. Immigration lawyer Alastair McClymont is leading the charge to have the law changed. “We seem to have a system where we punish these kids forever, for the rest of their lives, for the sins of their parents,” he told Kilgallon. “Is that really how we are supposed to treat children in this country?”
A deportation to New Zealand?
Meanwhile, prime minister Christopher Luxon found himself fielding questions about a very different deportation – one to New Zealand. Almost 100,000 Australians have signed a petition calling for the removal of far-right agitator Thomas Sewell to his country of birth after a violent attack on a First Nations protest camp in Melbourne over the weekend, reports RNZ. Sewell faces multiple charges, including violent disorder, affray and assault by kicking.
Although Sewell was born in New Zealand, he also holds Australian citizenship, making the petition highly unlikely to succeed under current law. Canberra’s long-running deportations of New Zealanders have typically relied on section 501 of the Migration Act and the absence of Australian citizenship. In Sewell’s case, any action would hinge on rare citizenship-cancellation provisions that apply to specific, serious offences – a high bar not met by the charges he’s currently facing. Luxon said Sewell “sounds like a pretty awful human being”, but given he’s an Australian citizen, “I’ll let that run its course”.
