General elections are upon us and some would hope that this time politicians won’t use vulnerable groups of communities (migrants) as scapegoats to mislead and gain votes in this election again. Unfortunately, the trend appears to be repeating again. Shane Jones’ recent and continuous attack on Indian migrants is not only racist but also factually incorrect.

Minister Jones recently stated that “everyone comes here from New Delhi” and that “the number of students that have come here from India have ruined many of those institutions”. This is factually incorrect. In fact, it is the opposite.

Successive governments have failed to regulate offshore education agents who mislead the migrants from the country of origin, along with many dodgy private education institutions here in New Zealand who provide courses which are of little to no value. This oversight has led to what we call ‘education trafficking’ and has ruined the future of many young lives coming from not only India but from other developing countries like China, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. International students pay between $20,000 to $30,000 each year to study in New Zealand, and the education industry has added billions of dollars to the economy.

However, in return, migrants are conveniently scapegoated for all kinds of things by politicians to hide their regulatory failures during an election year. The New Zealand government allows unlicensed education agents to promote education in New Zealand, Immigration NZ approves their visas, and dodgy private institutes operate PTEs as profit-making businesses without much care for the students. Yet when these practises are highlighted, the students are the ones in the firing line. The Union Network of Migrants (UNEMIG) has, through its sub networks like the Indian Workers Association and Migrante Aotearoa, consistently lobbied the Government for change. For a Minister to then blame migrants for their own inaction is hypocritical.

Minister Shane Jones may not realise this, but migrants are humans too and targeting them for the sake of personal political gain exposes them to unwanted racist attacks and anxiety.

This is a particular level of hypocrisy in our politics that while NZ First MP Shane Jones made these comments to media in New Zealand, the leader of his party, Winston Peters, in his authority as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, was shaking hands with leaders in New Delhi and discussing higher education, business and industry. Yet on his arrival back in New Zealand, Mr Peters backed Shane Jones’ comments by saying that this is what migrant organisations like ours are highlighting, which is again misleading and wrong.

We have highlighted that the education system is failing these vulnerable students. They are the victims, not the culprits. Such racist rhetoric can have a devastating impact on vulnerable communities. We request that all political parties to refrain from targeting immigrants in an attempt to advance their political careers.

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