Immigration Service in strife for 'inhuman' treatment

By ALAN PERROTT

The first time Pimthong Udumpun arrived in New Zealand she was stopped at Christchurch Airport, turned around and put on a 12-hour flight home without explanation.

The second time the Thai woman flew in she was locked up for 2 1/2 days and says she was denied access to sanitary napkins or a change of clothes despite complaining of a heavy period.

She was two hours away from deportation when a Rotorua judge ruled by telephone that she could stay on a visitor's permit.

And all the 34-year-old wanted was to surprise her Auckland relations and see a little of the country.



Her lawyer, Olinda Woodroffe, is planning legal action against the Immigration Service and police for the "inhuman" treatment.





Ms Woodroffe, who believes the service suspected Ms Udumpun was looking for work as a prostitute, is still waiting for a response to an Official Information Act request on why the Thai was rejected at Christchurch in 1999 and at Auckland this year.



Speaking through a translator, Ms Udumpun said she did not understand what she had done to deserve such treatment. Her visits to New Zealand were the only times she had left her home country.

Her cousin Homhual Emmett, who lives in Onehunga with her New Zealand-born husband and two children, said the experience had left a sour taste and they wanted an apology.

"For me, I like New Zealand - there are good people - but every time my cousin thinks about being here she gets unhappy. It's not fair."

Mrs Emmett said her cousin only wanted to surprise them.

Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel, already in strife after a deportation blunder involving a Filipino family, referred the Herald to Police Minister George Hawkins, who referred the newspaper back to Lianne Dalziel.

But Inspector Jim Searle of Counties Manukau police said last night that he found it "highly unlikely" that Pimthong Udumpun would have been treated as she claimed in the Papakura cells.

"We deal with immigrants all the time and have processes in place to provide sanitary needs and I seriously doubt that she would have been denied access to those."

He "seriously questioned" claims that she had been poorly treated by his staff.

"We don't have a translator available all the time, so a communication breakdown is possible, but until I am able to find out the specifics of the incident that is merely speculation."

Meanwhile, the Immigration Service has apologised to the Filipino family it mistakenly deported on Tuesday and brought back the next day.

Overstayers Rosanna and Jira Mila and their 9-year-old daughter were taken from their Auckland home between 6.05 am and 6.10 am.

But the service then found that members of the family had appealed to the Removal Review Authority to stay and therefore could not legally be removed.

The error, which Lianne Dalziel blamed on officials, cost taxpayers around $4000 in airfares.