Katy Armstrong: Into NZ Immigration Principal Consultant on the Daman Kumar case and overstayer amnesty

It's thought the Government is unlikely to grant a wide scale amnesty for overstayers.  

Daman Kumar, who was facing deportation to India even though he'd never visited, has now been offered residency.  

The Greens want his parents to be granted an exemption, as they have been overstayers for 24 years. 

Into NZ Immigration principal consultant Katy Armstrong says the Government won't want to grant amnesty because it could be seen as unfair to legal migrants.  

She told Mike Hosking there needs to be support for those who have done the right thing. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Daman Kumar set to stay parents got to go though,
tough call for the minister. I suspect a lot of
questions around how many overstars this week we've got in
the country, got no idea about now. Katie Armstrong is
the owner of Into New Zealand Immigration Back with us,
Katie morning.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Good morning mate.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
The lack of stats did any of that? You know,
the fact that we haven't got a clue who's here
and who isn't? Does that surprise you, worry you, upset you.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I do find it a little bit upsetting. It doesn't
surprise me. I don't think there's much resource put into
this kind of research anymore at all. But yes, I
mean it would be extremely useful, would it not to
have some kind of better clue the last starts we're
in twenty seventeen.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Right do you? I mean, how does it materially affect
us outside of every now and again somebody comes to
our attention that may need booting out of the country.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Well, that's one way of putting it. The other way
is look at just always remembering that these are you know,
these are individual people who respect, you know, who need
dignity when treating them. But how it affects New Zealand
as a whole. I guess is that out there. I
don't think anybody would think it's particularly healthy to have long,
long term overstayers in the country, particularly these cases with children.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Do you love these people? I was thinking about the Kumas.
So at some point you become illegal and then you
go to yourself, right, well, a week's gone by, a
month's gone by, years gone by. Can I go to
somebody and try and get that rectified? Do you deal
that sort of thing or not?

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Can you rectify it?

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Well, there are mechanisms for rectifying, and yes, we do. So,
you know, we've got within the law. We have two
different processes for attempting to rectify. One is where you
go into the jaws of immigration New Zealand itself. It's
called a Section sixty one process. Sometimes that's successful, but
it depends on the mood of your you know, of

(01:52):
immigration New Zealand. The other backstop is the minister. The
thing that happened in this case with Kumar, which I
think has caused, you know, really really caused a lot
of upset, is that that was a case that was
meant to be decided by an Associate Minister whose job
it is to to, you know, be that safety net.
But in fact it was seemingly palmed off to what

(02:13):
we call the delegated decision makers. These are people within
Immigration New Zealand who are making some very hard nosed
decisions of late.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Is that a crapshoot if you go within as you
put it, within the jaws of the department, If you
get Brian who's in a good mood as opposed to
Sharon who's an infoul mood, can it change on that
or not?

Speaker 2 (02:33):
I think our industry would say that most of the
time that the delegated decision makers are not in a
particularly good mood.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Right, So you boot it down and have they solved
the problem? He stays, parents gone. Has that solved anything?

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Well, it's definitely solved something for him around his ability
to go into tertiary education. And I think it was
absolutely the right decision. It was, you know, it was
a no brainer. I think with the parents it's terribly fought.
I don't know the end of circumstances. I don't know
how they came to be overstairs. I don't know what
they've done with their lives. Clearly for the child or

(03:07):
the two children. It's going to be traumatic that the
parents have to leave.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, but see, if you were a blunt you might
say something along the lines of maybe the parents might
like to have thought of that.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yes, and I hear you, and I understand, And these
are all the different balancing acts. I think that's one
of the reasons why we haven't had the amnesty is
because people, you know this government said, you know, it's
all very well giving an amnesty to overstairs, but what
about the lawful people when we have twenty one.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
It's a sort of a microcosmic version of America at
this point, isn't it well?

Speaker 2 (03:41):
And I see it as an opportunity Mike four Newsum
to differentiate its approach to America. I mean, our problem,
you know, the last that's the fourteen to twenty thousand.
The UK's got maybe up to a million, noting or
maybe one point two million. Our problems are really very small.
We don't have land borders. We have to remember that,
so we could potentially sort this, but I would like

(04:02):
to see more work done also in parallel, on what
do we do about those long term legal people who
missed out on that twenty twenty one residence Za. That
was the big opportunity. That was the opportunity to actually
during COVID say to people who were lawful, you've got
a pathway, but where the way they sliced and diced.

(04:23):
It was terribly unfair. And we have got people I
spoke to one yesterday who's been here lawfully for a
good number of years contributing what happens to that person.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Striding the Pinks world and Caddy, good to have you
on the program, Caddy Armstrong. For more from the Mic
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