Editorial: It's a buyers market

Immigration attempted to deport Juliet Garcia within a 48 hour period in April.

What Immigration NZ doesn't seem to understand is that it is working in a buyer's market. This is a tiny, massively advantaged country with a very limited capacity to absorb people who would like to live here. We can afford to set a very high benchmark, and should be doing so.

Immigration's responsibility is to examine every applicant according to what they can offer us. We are told, repeatedly, that this is exactly what happens. We are looking for people with skills that this country needs. But patently it is not.

If it was, 58-year-old Afghani Sultan Ali Abdul Ali Akbari would have been on a plane back to where he came from years ago. That he is still here is an affront to us all, and all the evidence we need that Immigration needs its head read.

We are told that Akbari arrived here in 2012, on a resident visa. How he acquired one of those is the first mystery. We are now told that this recidivist sex offender did not have sufficient English to complete rehabilitative programmes in prison.

So while Akbari enjoys the support that Immigration and the Parole Board hope will turn him from a recidivist sex offender, with strong paedophilia overtones, into a worthy citizen, Juliet Garcia and her husband remain on tenterhooks. They have a three-month reprieve ...

We don't know what skills he offered in 2012, but he obviously had at least one shortcoming that should have excluded him from the start.

Four months after he arrived he indecently assaulted a woman, and was subsequently convicted. While he was on bail, awaiting trial over that offence, he indecently assaulted two girls, aged 8 and 10, and an 18-year-old. He was eventually jailed for 25 months. A pre-sentence report rated his risk of re-offending as moderate to high, and noted an escalation in his offending. It also commented on a lack of remorse.

In January this year Akbari was released on parole, despite his lack of English having resulted in him making "no progress" whilst in prison. The Parole Board decided to let him go on the basis that support structures and plans to keep him "safe from such future allegations arising" were likely to ensure that he did not re-offend.

That logic, if that's the right word, is outrageous. It is not a question of keeping this man "safe from future allegations." It is his potential victims who the Parole Board should be worried about. And the assessment that the support available to him is "likely" to curb his penchant for sexual offending is nowhere near good enough.

We can safely assume that none of Akbari's victims to date have been the daughters of Parole Board members.

It is also telling that the Parole Board did not see the risk of re-offending reducing by keeping him in prison, despite the fact that he had made no effort to change his ways whilst there. It might be quaintly old-fashioned to regard prison as punishment, but not to regard it as a fail-proof means of keeping us save.

Akbari is now subject to a curfew and may not associate with young people unsupervised, until September. Then he'll be completely free.

The vagaries of the parole system have longed passed all understanding, but Immigration could have deported this man. The department that last month gave Kaitaia woman Juliet Garcia two days to pack up and leave, or face the prospect of deportation after a decade of working for the same employer, gaining qualifications and experience, who had proved her worth beyond all question, thinks this man's worth keeping.

A man who at 58 has a serious criminal record in this country, and goodness knows what in Afghanistan, who speaks insufficient English to take part in rehabilitation programmes, who cannot be trusted to associate with young people, receives much more favourable treatment than a law-abiding mother and grandmother who has proved her value to her adopted community.

A woman who had successfully renewed her work visa nine times, and had passed three health checks to prove that she would not be a drain on our public health system, is not wanted, but a man with totally unacceptable sexual proclivities is.

The only condition attached to Immigration's largesse is that Akbari has to behave himself for five years. And even if he doesn't, he will then only be liable for deportation. There is no guarantee than further offending will see him bunged on a plane and sent back from whence he came.

All we know about the person who made this decision is that he or she is a senior Immigration official, who apparently took heed of criteria including the risk of re-offending, which has been assessed as moderate to high. You can bet it is.

Sexual predators don't generally start in their 50s. Dollars to doughnuts he has been offending for a very long time. And if he hasn't done anything to address his behaviour, why would he change now?

Family connections and support in New Zealand were also taken into account, apparently, along with conditions in Afghanistan and the reasons for the original decision to grant him a residence visa. Who cares what he would be going home to? He has proved that he is not a fit and proper person to be granted residence.

He must have known that offending of this nature would place him in jeopardy of deportation, but that didn't stop him. Immigration should have made its decision based on what's good for this country, and the need to protect this man's potential future victims, not on how hard life will be for him if he's sent packing.

A victim advocate last week challenged Immigration to find anyone in this country who would not look at Akbari's record and not deport him. That's not going to happen. Government departments can be trusted not to leaven their decisions with common sense, Immigration least of all.

So while Akbari enjoys the support that Immigration and the Parole Board hope will turn him from a recidivist sex offender, with strong paedophilia overtones, into a worthy citizen, Juliet Garcia and her husband remain on tenterhooks. They have a three-month reprieve, but don't bet on their being allowed to stay in Kaitaia, earning their living and paying their taxes.

Ms Garcia now has a qualification that entitles her to apply for residence under the government's skills list, but while she and her employer were fighting deportation the government shifted the goal posts.

Two weeks ago, under the old rules, Ms Garcia stood every chance of success. Now not so much. She'll come close, but not close enough. It is by no means beyond the realms of possibility that this couple will be sent back to the Philippines, because Immigration will deem her to be depriving a New Zealander of a job.

Ms Garcia's employer is once again looking for a New Zealand applicants, not in any real hope of finding one but to satisfy Immigration. It is beyond ironic that if Ms Garcia was a convicted criminal who did not speak English, who posed an obvious danger to children, she would have a better chance of being granted residence than she does as a highly-respected, hard-working member of her community.

Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse apparently has no legal ability to intervene in the Akbari case, but has said he will be making such decisions himself in future, rather than delegating them to officials whose decisions are unreviewable.

Good for him. The great advantage of a politician making these decisions is that politicians can be sacked. The worst that is likely to happen to an incompetent civil servant is that they will be promoted.