Majority Of HIV Migrants Still Awol

new-zealand-first-party

Mon Jun 11 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Majority Of HIV Migrants Still Awol

Monday, 11 June 2007, 2:22 pm
Press Release: New Zealand First Party

11 June 2007

The Immigration service is yet to find 40 Zimbabwean nationals who are now overstaying after not having applied for residence during a special HIV/AIDS residency amnesty period, says New Zealand First associate immigration spokesperson Peter Brown.

Answers to parliamentary questions show that 40 of the 67 Zimbabweaan nationals who failed to apply for residency under the Special Zimbabwean Residency Policy have yet to be found by the Immigration Service. 460 Zimbabwean nationals were eligible to apply for residency under the policy.

“Where are these people? The Immigration Service has had three months since the application period closed to track them down, yet it has found less than half of the people who had failed to apply,” said Mr Brown.

“The whole situation is a debacle. The Government allowed more than a thousand Zimbabweans into New Zealand without checking their health, despite Zimbabwe having one of the world’s highest rates of HIV infection. It was then forced to offer the ‘no questions asked’ residency amnesty to entice those Zimbabweans to apply for residency as a means of preventing an HIV epidemic.

“The amnesty offered by the Government was extremely generous and allowed them to stay no matter what diseases they might have. It even offered to treat any disease, at great expense to the taxpayer, for the rest of their lives. The Government could not have offered a better deal, but now they have failed to take the offer, the Government must fulfil its duty to remove them at once.

“It is the Immigration Minister’s job to ensure that all of these Zimbabweans illegally in New Zealand are found and removed without delay in the interests of all Kiwis, and our country’s reputation,” said Mr Brown.

ENDS

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