Simon Laurent: Immigration lawyer on criminals with a New Zealand residency could now face deportation

What could be a reactive move - as Immigration Minister Erica Stanford sends a clear message to immigrants, to obey the law.

Criminals with New Zealand residency could now face deportation if they've been here for less than 20 years.

That's double the current limit of under 10 years. 

Immigration lawyer Simon Laurent told Andrew Dickens this is a response to an overall mood that's surfacing, particularly in the UK and Australia.

He says it's an approach that's been sweeping through other democracies, for the past few years.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, we're still on the migration and immigration issues right now,
right here in New Zealand, with Ericus Stamford sending a
clear message to immigrants obey the law or you're gone.
Criminals with New Zealand residency could now face deportation for
up to twenty years after arriving. Now that has doubled
the current limit, So well this work or not. We're
joined by Simon Lawrence, who is an immigration lawyer. Simon,

(00:22):
good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Was this a needed change to our immigration law because
a lot of the critics have already said it seems
pretty vague.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yes, Well, that was the first impression that I had
when I read this. I think it's necessary to see
what's the wording of the bill itself, which hasn't even
been introduced yet, to see what the mechanism is really
going to be and how.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Many migrants actually decide to commit crimes after living here
for over ten years, because surely they might have been
criminals before they came here.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Well, that's a separate issue because there are other there
are others who have committed criminal offense. This is a
long time ago which this bill seeks to sweep up
and the classic case which I think has influenced this,
as that of Carl Strubik. But in respect of those
who might have committed offenses a long time after they've

(01:16):
arrived here and obtained residents, as the minister said yesterday,
probably not very many. And in fact, the other issue
is that quite a lot of those would probably have
gone on to get citizenship. So a change to the
immigration rules is not going to affect them.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yes, that thing, this is about residency. But there are
immigrants who come here. I'm one, I was born in
the UK. We come here and we get citizenship. Now
will they be effective? If someone's been living here for
ten years, why would they not just go out and
get the citizenship and then we can't touch them anyway?

Speaker 2 (01:46):
That's exactly it. And I mean there are people who
sat here as residents for twenty thirty forty years who
never gets citizenship. They don't need to, never occurs to them.
They don't want to lose their birth citizenship. So there's
a few of those. How many of those commit serious
enough crimes? It's probably a very small number.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
And do you think this is just politics because there's
so much talk about immigration. We just talked about it
with Vincent mcavinnie. We've got the protests happening in the
UK and Australia. Is this a political response to a mood.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
It's a response to a mood and an approach which
is sweeping through what we might call the liberal democracies
over the last couple of years in particular. And I
think I also thought of the way that Australia has
been throwing out the five O one deportees, and I

(02:42):
sense that this is all rather reactive.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
I have to say, isn't the bad press for immigrants
is well, it's unfortunate because they are so crucial for
almost all the country's economies.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
They're certainly crucial to New Zealand's economy, something that the
government must never forget.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Okay, And on a separate there's twenty thousand illegal overstayers
currently in this country. Do we need to do something
about that?

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Well, there's been twenty thousand illegals overstayers as long as
I've been in business in this field, which is about
thirty years, so this is no surprise at all. It
fluctuates back and forth. It was about fourteen thousand prior
to COVID. Yes, of course, something should be done. Suggestion
has been made about having an amnesty year that I'd

(03:29):
probably support that. However, the last time we had one
in two thousand and two I think it was, it
didn't actually make a huge difference to the ultimate numbers.
There's always a sort of a tranch of people who
who will just outstay their visas.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
All right, Simon, I thank you so much for your time.
Simon Laurence here is an immigration lawyer, Chaier of the
New Zealand Association of Migration and Investment.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
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