Greens call for overstayer amnesty after dawn raid reports surface; Immigration Minister Michael Wood says decision ‘quite soon’

Green Party Pacific spokesman Teanau Tuiono. Photo / RNZ, Samuel Rillstone

Immigration Minister Michael Wood says he has taken advice on granting amnesties to the roughly 14,000 people estimated to have overstayed their visas and will make a decision on the issue “quite soon”.

It comes as the Green Party escalates its calls for the Government to immediately grant amnesties to the roughly 14,000 people estimated to have overstayed their visas, in light of reports dawn raids are still occurring.

Community Law South Auckland lawyer Soane Foliaki revealed to Tagata Pasifika that police showed up at 5am at the home of one of his clients, scaring his children and taking him into custody.

Immigration New Zealand has since confirmed to RNZ the incident was not a one-off, with about “18 or 19″ interactions with people between July last year and April occurring “outside of hours”. An ethnic breakdown showed majority (10) were Chinese, while three were of Pacific ethnicity including two Tongan and one Samoan.

The reports have raised questions about the practice, especially after the Government two years ago apologised for the infamous dawn raids of the 1970s, which disproportionately targeted Pasifika people.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins on Monday said he did not expect them to be happening anymore.

“That does concern me. Those aren’t the sorts of tactics that I would expect us to be using in New Zealand,” Hipkins said.

Pacific leaders have long petitioned the Government for an amnesty for overstayers, which gained momentum after the 2021 apology, delivered by former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

The Green Party has also been advocating for such a scheme and this year there were further calls for an amnesty for overstayers in cyclone-affected regions, many of whom would have arrived from the Pacific under the recognised seasonal employer (RSE) scheme and ended up overstaying their visas.

New Zealand has not had an amnesty scheme in place since 2000, when “well-settled” overstayers at the time were able to apply for a pathway to residency, covering about 7000 people. A similar scheme launched recently in Ireland, where there are about 17,000 undocumented migrants.

Immigration New Zealand estimates there are about 14,000 overstayers in New Zealand. Hipkins has said the Government would look into the issue.

In March, Immigration Minister Michael Wood confirmed the Government was “actively considering” the issue of granting amnesties for migrant overstayers. He said he had spoken to ministers about it, including the Minister for Pacific Peoples.

Wood said he could not give any timeframe for a decision.

Asked today about an amnesty, Wood said the Government was “still considering the issue”.

“I have received advice from officials on it. We are taking our time to work it through it would be a very significant undertaking.

“The last time one was done was 22 years ago, and it does have broader implications within the immigration system.

“But it is an issue that I want to give certainty on one way or the other quite soon.”

Green Party Pacific spokesman Teanau Tuiono said he was “deeply troubled” by the news of more dawn raids occurring and there needed to be answers and immediate action.

“It is simply not good enough for ministers to express ‘concern’ and to reiterate their expectation that dawn raid tactics are not used,” Tuiono said.

“The dawn raids are a shameful stain on New Zealand history, and I do not want another generation to grow up with the trauma of seeing loved ones dragged away for no good reason.

“The time is now to make good on this and create a broad amnesty programme for people who overstay.”

Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni said news of the dawn raids continuing was “hugely disappointing and uncomfortable”.

“It was such a traumatising period of time for the Pacific community. We certainly don’t want to see that happen,” Sepuloni - currently also the Associate Foreign Affairs (Pacific Region) Minister and a former Associate Minister for Pacific Peoples, said.

Wood said historical dawn raids apology applied to a “massive systemic approach of dawn raids across the whole community”, while the current cases were “isolated”.

“We want to make sure that when Immigration New Zealand are enforcing their powers to deport it’s reasonable, proportionate, and it does take account of the difficult history,” Wood said.

“I would not expect to see this being common, I would expect the use of out-of-hours deportations to be only in those small number of extreme cases where there is no other option.”

National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis said it raised questions about the validity of the apology.

On an amnesty, Willis said it hadn’t been discussed within the National caucus.

“The balance you need to strike with immigration policy is that there are clear rules and people know that if they don’t follow the rules, there are consequences because it’s about fairness to everyone else, who is obeying the rules and ensuring that people aren’t unduly rewarded for breaking them,” she said.

“So we need to be pragmatic and practical about these policies.”