Refugee claims have exploded since New Zealand’s border re-opened

Ankur Sabharwal is a New Zealand licensed immigration adviser and the owner of Auckland-based immigration advisory Visa Matters.

OPINION: The number of people claiming refugee status in New Zealand has exploded in the past two years, statistics released by Immigration New Zealand show.

In the 11 months to 31 May 2024, a total of 2220 people claimed refugee status in New Zealand.

Half of these asylum seekers – 1108 people – were from a single country: India.

Before the Covid pandemic, the number of refugee claimants averaged only 400 people a year.

To cope with the huge increase in refugee claimants, Immigration New Zealand’s Refugee Status Branch has taken on 14 more staff.

However, there is still a one-year backlog before refugee claimants are interviewed by INZ’s refugee and protection officers.

What’s the reason for the increase?

It’s not because more genuine refugees are coming to New Zealand.

Pre-Covid, approval rates for refugee claims were around 35%, but that rate has dropped to 21% in the past three years.

This means that in 79% of cases, INZ decides that claimants do not meet the definition of a genuine refugee (someone who has “a well-founded fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”).

I have received several calls from Indian nationals in New Zealand on temporary visas who told me they plan to claim asylum.

They had a similar profile: Young men from the Punjab region of India who claimed to support the independence movement in that region.

I was curious whether they would likely meet the refugee definition: none of them described any previous persecution because of their religious beliefs or political activism.

I asked INZ why they thought more people were claiming refugee status in New Zealand, but received no answer.

Can INZ do anything to stop people coming to New Zealand to claim asylum?

Yes, they can. INZ approved visas to every single one of those 1108 people from India who claimed asylum in the past year.

As I have explained in previous columns, INZ normally doesn’t check documents submitted with visa applications.

Immigration officers are based in New Zealand; only in 1.7% of cases do they ask their colleagues based in India or China to check documents which have been submitted with visitor visa applications. (This is an improvement since I wrote my column in May 2023, when documents in less than 1% of applications were checked.)

So INZ has approved visas to many people who claimed that they were planning to stay only a few weeks on holiday in New Zealand, but who actually intended to look for work and stay permanently.

You can be fairly confident, though, that INZ will have profiled the 2200 people who claimed refugee status in the past year – if you are a young man from Punjab in India, you might find it difficult now to be approved a visa for New Zealand.

This is borne out in visitor visa approval rates, which have dropped from 90% to 86% in the past two years (based on 550,000 applications processed by INZ).

So what if some people claim refugee status? It’s still not a huge number

Here are some reasons why we should be concerned about the increase in the number of non-genuine refugee claimants:

1. They cost a lot of money. Refugee claimants qualify for Emergency Benefits from Work & Income, and free legal aid from lawyers specialising in refugee claims. In 2000, it was estimated by INZ that each refugee claim costs New Zealand $30,000 – that figure is likely to be a lot higher now.
2. They cheat and lie to get into New Zealand, and most of them tell more fibs when claiming refugee status. They may have character issues – criminal convictions – which they are hiding from INZ. Refugees don’t have to provide police certificates from their home countries.
3. Refugee claimants are currently being granted 12-month ‘open’ work visas while awaiting their claims to be heard. This encourages more people to try coming to New Zealand to gain asylum-seeker privileges.

I agree that INZ needs to tighten up who it approves visas to … but it is now turning down a lot more visa applicants because they lack evidence of strong reasons to return to their home country after visiting New Zealand.

Unlike last year, you will now likely be refused a New Zealand visitor visa unless you have a well-paid job, strong financial ties, and/or close family members in your home country.

DISCLAIMER: This article does not constitute immigration advice. Individuals need to seek personal advice from a New Zealand licensed immigration adviser or lawyer to assess their unique situation. Ankur can be contacted at info@visamatters.co.nz.