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Claims proposed law changes would result in a US-style overstayer crackdown were “completely wrong”, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford says.
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She told a select committee on Wednesday the Immigration (Enhanced Risk Management) Amendment Bill included changes that were simple and technical, and would help officers do their job.
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They included allowing compliance officers to question suspected overstayers, without evidence they were overstaying.
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Immigration staff could only ask someone for information like their name and date of birth if they were already known to be liable for deportation – but that would change so they could ask if there was “good cause to suspect” they were overstaying.
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Compliance officers were frustrated with the status quo, Stanford said.
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“They will turn up, they’re looking for this man, they know he’s there, ‘hello, nice to meet you’ – and they can see three other people who are hiding or one guy that just jumped out the window and ran away,” she said.
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“Right now, they can’t even… ask for their identity or their date of birth to check who they are.”
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The change would mean officers could take down their details, allowing them to check up on their immigration status.
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It would only happen in very limited circumstances, and officers would not have “stopping power”, she said.
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“It is a very, very, simple technical change to allow compliance officers to do their job.”
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Claims the law changes had echoes of US ICE-style raids were “completely wrong” and a result of misunderstanding and scaremongering, Stanford said.
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Proposed deportation appeal process ‘far inferior’ – Labour
Labour’s immigration spokesperson Phil Twyford grilled the minister on a change that would restrict some overstayers’ right to appeal deportation.
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Labour’s immigration spokesperson Phil Twyford. (File photo) Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
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Currently overstayers or people with convictions could appeal, with their success relying on having ‘exceptional’ humanitarian circumstances, weighed against any public interest factors.
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Under the proposed changes, overstayers who were most recently on a visitor visa, or any temporary migrant who commits a crime, would lose that right.
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Twyford said just over half of appeals were upheld in 2024/25, including partners, parents and children of New Zealand citizens, and family violence victims.
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“You’re taking away due process for those people and offering them something that is far inferior,” he said.
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Stanford said they still had a right plead their case in “rare, exceptional circumstances” – but Twyford said that was not comparable, because the Associate Immigration Minister could decline to hear it.
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Twyford said justification for the change had been framed around “administrative efficiency”.
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“I’m not aware that any evidence has been provided at all of any risk to the public, any absconding, any other negative consequences,” he said.
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“I wonder how you can justify taking away such an important element of due process for people in our system on the grounds only of administrative efficiency?”
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Stanford said the number of people appealing deportation annually had spiked to more than 600, a “massive increase” from 135 in 2018/19.
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“There are people who are using the process to stay here for an extended period of time, because that basically adds another 200 days on to your stay in New Zealand,” she said.
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“If there is a genuine reason for you to want to appeal or have your circumstances considered, that backstop still exists.”Source:RNZ
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