The Immigration Act is not a description of policy, but rather a framework for assessing and determining claims made by people in New Zealand seeking refugee status.
[9] After the Mosque attacks in Christchurch in 2019, attention turned to the coalition government's continued restrictions on African and Middle Eastern refugees.
[12][13] In early October 2019, the Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway announced that the Labour-led coalition government would be scrapping the discriminatory requirement that African and Middle Eastern refugee applicants already have relatives who were residing in New Zealand.
[14][15][16] On 16 May 2020, the Green Party's immigration spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman announced that the Government will be doubling the cap on New Zealands' family reunification scheme from 300 to 600 over the next three years under a new NZ$21 million funding boost.
These people have been assessed as refugees with a high need of protection by UNHCR and referred to New Zealand, based on the regional allocations decided every three years by the government.
[24] Since 2020, the top countries for refugee quota arrivals have been Syria, Afghanistan, Colombia, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Pakistan.
The rest of the cases are general humanitarian In doing so the country offers some preferential places for those who are already marginalised and vulnerable, and for whom it is the most difficult to find resettlement locations.
They are offered a programme of residential and employment orientation, and then move off to one of the seven major resettlement areas, Auckland (restricted to family connected cases in 2016), Hamilton, Palmerston North, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, Dunedin and, Invercargill.
[29][30] Asylum seekers who apply for refugee status on shore are usually allowed to live in the community, with none being placed in prison or detention since a report and inquiry in 2021.
The campaign justified this increase based on population growth since the quota was set at 800 places in 1987, and a sharp decrease in the number of asylum seekers accepted from 2001 onwards.
[37] The public awakening to the refugee crisis in August of that year led to doubling the quota becoming a popular argument for how New Zealand should respond, gaining support from mayors,[38] churches,[39] other NGOs, the National Party's youth wing,[40] and media commentators.
[43] In the lead up to the 2017 election, Doing Our Bit continued the campaign with a nationwide speaking tour securing pledges of Members of Parliament and candidates to double the quota.
In 2013 a Migration Amendment Bill was introduced which would allow the government to mandatorily detain refugees who arrive by boat in groups of ten or more.
[52] Refugee advocates have claimed that the New Zealand government is scare-mongering over asylum seekers in a manner similar to that deployed in Australian politics.
[55] However former Australian Border Force Commissioner Roman Quaedvlieg, said before the May 2018 attempt from Malaysia there "was only ever one vessel intercepted south of Papua New Guinea that was capable of reaching NZ physically and with an experienced crew; this one also looks like it could have.
Examples include: New legislation was introduced to Parliament in the final year of the sixth Labour government, but did not pass before the House rose.
[78] In May 2015 a ship with passengers including 54 Sri Lankans (Tamils), 10 Bangladeshis, one person from Myanmar (Rohingya) and five additional crew was sailing towards New Zealand in international waters.
[88][89] The Green Party raised the possibility that the New Zealand intelligence agencies had been involved in tracking the boat and if so were "complicit in violating international law, the Refugee Convention and ignoring the UN’s criticism of Australia".
"[93] Ahead of the 2017 general election a number of MPs and activists signed an open-letter calling on the government to bring the passengers of the Andika to New Zealand to have their asylum claims assessed in New Zealand[94] In August 2017, the Fifth National Government approved a pilot "Community Organisation Refugee Sponsorship Category (CORS) Category" scheme, that was launched in 2018 in response to the 2015 European migrant crisis.
That same year, Amnesty International submitted a petition with 10,276 signatures to Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway calling for the CORS scheme to be made permanent.
Immigration New Zealand's manager for refugee and migrant support Sarah Ward confirmed that community groups could nominate someone to sponsor or be matched with a person in need.
[107] In early November 2021, Community Law Waikato challenged Immigration New Zealand's decision to stop processing visas by Afghan migrants and refugees in 2020.
[108] On 23 November, the High Court ruled against Immigration NZ's decision to cease processing Afghan interpreters' visas due to the COVID-19 pandemic and for not making humanitarian grounds following the Taliban takeover.
[110] Following a second judicial challenge by Community Law Waikato, the High Court rejected Immigration NZ's decision to cease processing Afghan visa applications.
[111] In early February 2022, Radio New Zealand reported that only 17 of the 77 Afghan applicants since November 2021 had received a Family Support Category visa and that these 17 were unable to enter the country due to a lack of official assistance.
Immigration New Zealand had initially assigned two staff members to process their visas following the court ruling but had since increased the number of personnel to nine.