Overstayer is a term that frightens some fully fledged New Zealanders. The dawn raids of a generation ago left a scar in the Polynesian community that no Immigration Minister can ignore. When Lianne Dalziel announced a crackdown on overstayers last week, the problem had better be serious enough to warrant the anxiety the word has caused.
Estimates put the number of people illegally in New Zealand between 18,900 and 22,400. There are at least 5700, possibly 7700, who could avoid the crackdown if they come forward before March 30 under the partial amnesty the minister has offered before she gets tough. She has aimed the amnesty at those she calls "well-settled overstayers." By that, she means people who have been living here illegally for five years, people married or in a de facto relationship with a citizen, or people who have a child born in this country. It also applies to a spouse or partner of anyone who meets one of the above criteria.
On the score of family considerations, the amnesty seems fair. It has probably attended to all the circumstances which might otherwise wrench loved ones apart and cause distress, some of it the minister's if she has to answer for the consequences of a heartless policy.
But the definition of "well-settled overstayers" ought to have gone much further and to have taken account of employment. Anybody who is holding down a job these days is likely to be contributing usefully to a company and the community. A stable work record alone should also be grounds to remain here, particularly if skills have been brought to the job or acquired in it.
New Zealand's immigration rules are far too restrictive when it comes to granting permits to people in employment. The idea seems to persist that they are denying a job to a citizen who could do it well enough. In an open, competitive economy, employers need to be able to bring in the best staff they can find.
No company is going to go to the expense of assisting an immigrant if it can find the right person for the job already here, and legally able to work. When somebody is employed, the immigration authorities should assume there is a good reason for it and, provided the usual character checks are satisfied, a work permit should be automatic. That should apply to overstayers as well as anyone recruited overseas.
After all, the country is hardly facing overpopulation. Its problem is the opposite - a net migration loss in the past two years and the prospect of overall population decline if present fertility and demographic trends continue well into this century. And that calculation assumes an annual net migration gain of 5000, which we have not seen lately. In the larger picture, a crackdown on remaining overstayers next year seems short-sighted.
The two-thirds of overstayers who will not receive this amnesty have been warned by Lianne Dalziel to expect "tough new immigration laws." They will be removed from the country and banned from returning for five years, which will probably see them refused entry also to other Commonwealth countries. The minister says there will be no return to dawn raids but gives no indication of the methods that might be used to find and to remove those here illegally. It is a question of abiding concern not only to those in hiding but, unfortunately, to those whose ethnicity could cause them to suffer indignities and worse if the law enforcement is not careful. The prediction of one Auckland Samoan lawyer, that people granted an amnesty could spend a night in the cells for failing to produce evidence of marriage or of a New Zealand child, must not be fulfilled.
Others worry that Chinese, brought here unwittingly by agents who made false refugee claims for them, will be hit hard. To reassure the Australian Government that the amnesty will not cause more onward migration, Lianne Dalziel says expulsions will cancel out the effect of the amnesty. That puts added pressure on the crackdown. She is taking on a task that could turn nasty, for her as well as those who have quietly, illegally, made themselves at home here.
Herald Online feature: the immigrants
Participate in our online forum
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
Latest from New Zealand
Health sector and the NZDF in trouble, USA warns China | Focus Morning Bulletin April 27, 2024
The hospitals are being asked to save an unrealistic amount of money, there is a shortage of GP's and a third of NZDF's navy ships aren't being used due to staffing shortages.