Erica Stanford: Immigration Minister reveals why Government implementing tougher immigration laws

The Immigration Minister says changes to deportation laws were started because of the Mama Hooch rapists' case. 

Erica Stanford is proposing to make deportation possible for visa holders who've been here less than 20 years and also committed a serious crime. 

That's up from the existing 10 years - and could also apply to historic crimes. 
 
Stanford says Australian serial rapists Danny and Roberto Jaz currently can't be deported because they've been here over 10 years. 

"This is where all this work started from, which is just toughening up to make sure that we can deport people who've committed serious sexual and violent offences."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The government's proposing to step up its deportation game. Currently,
we can't deport criminals if they've been residents of New
Zealand for more than ten years. A proposed law change
would extend that to twenty years. Erica Stanford is the
Minister of Immigration. High Erica, Hey, how are you would this?
I'm well thank you. Would this allow us to deport
the Mama Hooch brothers.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
That's exactly where this started from. It's a pretty disgusting
case and the fact that they've been here for longer
than ten years means that we are unable to deport them.
And this is where all this work started from, which
is just toughening up to make sure that we can
deport people who have committed serious sexual and violent offenses.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
So you're extending it to twenty years. Have those boys
been here less than twenty years?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Like?

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Are we going to be able to get rid of them?

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Well, this will be one of the we won't be
in this case because it's not retrospective. This will be
future focused. But there will be a question for the
Select Committee to work out whether or not twenty years
is the right I mean the right number of years.
I mean, should it be longer, should it be never?
I've set it twenty years. But are we very interested
to hear what the public's feedback is and their tolerance
for people who permit such crimes? You know, if you've

(01:08):
been here for thirty years or forty years or does
it not matter? So I'd like to hit a public
feedback around.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
I mean, isn't there a case Erica for actually, if
you haven't got citizenship, if you're on a residence visa
and you've been here sixty years and you decide to
kill somebody or rape somebody, you're out the door.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Well, yet, that is something we should definitely consider through
the select committee process.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
How many criminals have we got in the country right
now who we'd love to be able to deport but
can't because of the ten year rule.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, that's a great question. There won't be many. They'll
probably just a small handful, I expect. I don't actually
know that, and it may be that Immigration don't have
those figures either, but certainly, moving forward, let's get them
on their bike.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
So what did you make of that quite large number
of overstays.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, it was a number I was expecting. I'd kind
of guessed myself that's where it would land. It is
really difficult to know what the actual figures have been
in the past. We've never measured it like this before.
There has been a number come in since the border
has reopened, and that was a product of the fact
that immigration New Zealand their systems and processes in terms
of proper verification and risk management were up to scratch.

(02:16):
They've certainly been tightened now, but it does mean that
they're going to need a few extra tools in the
toolbox to help move people on.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Why have we got so many American overstays.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
It's just a proportion. We have a lot of Americans
come in and visit like we do a lot of
Chinese as well, So when you actually look at it
by percentage of people who come in, it's very different.
The Americans drop right down. There is only point one
four percent of Americans who overstay their visas, so it's
actually quite low.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Well, somebody suggested that it was because of McMurdo stations.
So they come into the New Zealand, they fly down
to Antarctic, you don't have to get anything stamped on
the way to Antarctica, and then they go over to
McMurdo and perhaps exit through Chili or something and never
never officially leave New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
I'll look into that. I'm not sure that's the case.
We've got quite sophisticated data monitoring now, so I'll look
into it, but I'm not sure that's the case, Erica.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Thank you, Erga Stamford, Immigration Minister. She was trying to
tell me I was wrong, but being kind about it.
The numbers are twenty one thousand overstays. The top three
countries where those overstairs are from Tonga with two thousand,
six hundred, China with two thousand, six hundred, and the
US with two thy two hundred. For more from hither
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(03:28):
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