May 05, 2023
Dawn raid undermines apology
A Pacific Island leader says Immigration New Zealand has lost the confidence and trust of the Pacific community.
Immigration deputy secretary Alison McDonald was on a zoom fono last night with Pacific Island leaders upset at last week’s dawn raid to arrest a Pacific man who had overstayed his visa.
Melani Anae, a founder member of the Polynesian Panther and senior lecturer in Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland, says Ms McDonald confirmed there had been 18 or 19 out of hours raids since July last year.
She says the department made a huge blunder by reactivating the state-sanctioned dawn raids of the 1970s.
“It took the Government 50 years for us to get an apology and it’s taken virtually five minutes for Immigration New Zealand to destroy the vaa between government and Pacific peoples again. When does it stop?” Dr Anae says.
She says Immigration New Zealand’s process of engagement with Pacific peoples and other ethnic communities is monocultural, inhumane and racist.