Hon Erica Stanford
Minister of Immigration

The Government will introduce the Immigration (Enhanced Risk Management) Amendment Bill to Parliament this afternoon, a package of practical and targeted changes to strengthen New Zealand’s immigration system and ensure it remains fit for today’s challenges.

“Immigration is important for New Zealand, and we are committed to ensuring we continue to attract the skilled people we need, while making it easier to address migrant exploitation, serious criminals, and immigration breaches”, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford says.

“The new Bill introduces several changes to ensure we have the right, proportionate tools to manage immigration risks.

“It focuses on striking the right balance between managing risk and maintaining strong safeguards for all people in New Zealand, ensuring our immigration system is fair, functional, and effective.

“Many of these proposed changes were announced last year after policy decisions were taken. This includes strengthening the ability to deport people who have committed serious crimes by extending the period of residence during which a person can be subject to liability for deportation from ten to twenty years.”

Alongside the Bill, a Parliamentary paper will be tabled with proposals for a further suite of changes. These will be aimed at protecting and strengthening the system around asylum claims so that New Zealanders can continue to have trust and confidence in the integrity of the immigration system.

The Parliamentary paper includes:

• Amending our interpretation of Article 1F(b) of the Refugee Convention which excludes people who commit serious crimes before admission to the country of refuge from refugee status, to extend that exclusion where they have committed a serious crime after arriving in New Zealand but before refugee status determination.
• Better managing asylum claimants who act in bad faith; and
• Better managing claimants who fail to attend biometric appointments

“Currently, if a person who has claimed refugee status has been convicted of a serious crime in New Zealand before status determination, Immigration New Zealand is unable to take that into account when making a decision,” Ms Stanford says.

“There are currently 14 refugee known claims from people who have been convicted of serious offences in New Zealand, including murder, serious sexual and drug offences, and arson. This change will mean that Immigration New Zealand can take convictions for crimes committed in New Zealand into account when making a decision on their refugee claim.”

The proposed amendment will ensure that people who commit crimes either offshore or in New Zealand before their refugee claim is determined are treated the same, sending a signal that this behaviour is not tolerated and maintaining public confidence in our refugee and protection system.

Two of the other proposals relate to better managing instances of bad faith such as where people take actions to deliberately engage in provocative political activity after arriving in New Zealand, such as seeking social media or media attention to create or increase their grounds for recognition as a refugee.

These will ensure that both INZ and the Immigration Protection Tribunal have the ability to deal with cases made in bad faith as swiftly as possible, and that the benefits associated with refugee status are reserved for those who genuinely deserve them.

The changes will continue to ensure that we maintain our international obligation to not return someone to a country where they are likely to face persecution or other serious harm.

“New Zealanders want us to do our part to provide refuge to people who are genuinely fleeing conflict and persecution. However, the privilege of being offered a life in new Zealand needs to be balanced with consequences for people who abuse that privilege or non-genuine claims that seek to take advantage of the system. These proposals strike the right balance between these,” Ms Stanford says.

The Bill is expected to have its first reading in the coming weeks and will proceed through the full parliamentary process.

Notes:

The Immigration (Enhanced Risk Management) Amendment Bill includes 15 amendments to strengthen immigration compliance and enforcement settings, and improve the integrity of the refugee and protection system:

1. Make deportation liability a more likely consequence at both the higher and lower ends of offending, across a longer period of residence in New Zealand, and enhance our ability to deport resident class visa holders who commit the most serious offences.
2. Make minor amendments to existing deportation settings to clarify that providing false or misleading information at any stage of the immigration process can trigger deportation liability, that historic crimes can give rise to deportation liability, when deportation liability ‘resets’ after significant time spent outside New Zealand, and that a person may be liable for deportation if a visa was granted unlawfully under the Act (an administrative error).
3. Enable a victim of a migrant to submit on deportation liability proceedings, even if that was not the crime giving rise to the deportation liability.
4. Increase the maximum sentence for migrant exploitation offending, from seven to ten years imprisonment.
5. Extend the time that MBIE has to issue infringement notices (fines) for certain employer infringement offences.
6. Introduce new infringement offences, to cover employers having provided incorrect and / or incomplete information, and employers failing to provide employment-related documents when requested under s277 of the Act; and broaden the scope of the existing offence of providing false or misleading information.
7. Make it easier for an immigration officer to request identifying information when they have good cause to suspect someone may be unlawfully in New Zealand or otherwise liable for deportation, or may be breaching their visa conditions.
8. Remove the right to appeal against deportation on humanitarian grounds to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal (IPT), for temporary class visa holders who commit a crime, and for all visitor visa holders.
9. Enable holders of deemed entry permission who are found to be inadmissible to enter New Zealand (for instance due to smuggling drugs or other contraband) to be turned around at the border.
10. In response to the 2022 Casey Review on the Restriction of Movement of Asylum Seekers, change decision-making around Residence and Reporting Requirement Agreements from being in the “absolute discretion” to the “discretion” of immigration officers.
11. Do not allow a claimant for asylum or protected status to apply for other visa types, while they remain in New Zealand, if they withdraw their asylum claim.
12. Allow residence class visa applicants to benefit when visa settings change after they have submitted an application.
13. Enable the electronic service of deportation liability notices where a physical address cannot be located.
14. Make it easier for immigration information to be shared with other agencies in support of their functions, aligning the Act with other comparable systems, and enhance privacy protections.
15. Make it clear that the Act enables the use of immigration information for digital credentials.

Cabinet has also agreed to 7 further amendments to be tabled in a Parliamentary paper to protect the protection system.

1. Enable a Refugee and Protection Officer to determine an asylum claim without further information where the claimant has failed to engage with the biometric process without good reason.
2. Provide that, where a claimant has acted otherwise than in good faith but has a genuine protection need, the Refugee and Protection Officer may refuse to consider the refugee claim, but must consider the protection claim. It will also enable the Immigration and Protection Tribunal to make a decision on the substance of the claim where the claimant has acted in bad faith.
3. Provide the Immigration and Protection Tribunal with jurisdiction to consider acts of bad faith that occur at any point.
4. Remove the ability to bring late appeals to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal.
5. Allow the Immigration and Protection Tribunal to decline an appeal against a decline of a second or subsequent claim on the grounds that the claimant’s circumstances have not significantly changed.
6. Enable people who commit serious non-political crimes between entry to New Zealand and status determination to be excluded from refugee status (but not protection status).
7. Create an authorisation to accept a claimant-initiated withdrawal of a refugee and protection claim.

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