More than 1500 asylum seekers in NZ illegally: report

2.45pm

A parliamentary committee is concerned about the number of asylum seekers who remain in New Zealand despite being declined refugee status -- including up to 1759 here illegally.

The foreign affairs, defence and trade select committee said in a report on immigration that 3421 people remained in New Zealand despite their claims for refugee status being declined.

The committee said it had been told 928 of the 3421 remained in the country pending the determination of their appeals to the Refugee Status Appeal Authority.

This meant 2493 people remained in New Zealand for other reasons.

New Zealand Immigration Service records indicated that at least 734 were here on valid permits -- 313 had been granted residence and 421 were on temporary permits -- "and that a maximum of 1759 were in New Zealand unlawfully".

"The majority of the committee is concerned about the number of asylum seekers who have been declined refugee status but whom still remain in New Zealand," the report said.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters today said it was "disgraceful" that hundreds of illegal aliens were wandering around the country and said the illegal asylum seekers should be deported immediately or placed in secure detention areas until arrangements had been made to "get them out of here".

The committee said the number of asylum seekers detained had decreased following a High Court ruling in June that it was illegal to detain asylum seekers simply on the grounds they did not have travel documents.

The judge ruled there must be risk of criminal activity for asylum seekers to be detained.

A large proportion of asylum seekers had been detained following last year's terrorist attacks in the United States.

Since September 19 2001, 223 asylum seekers had been detained. After the High Court ruling, 56 were detained.

The committee said extra funding was made available to process more refugee status claims in 2001 and 2002.

This was to make 1800 determinations a year.

There were currently 525 outstanding determinations, down from about 3000 in 1998/99.

Of these, 17 applicants had been detained and 508 given permits.

The number of new refugee claims had decreased in the past 12 months.

The minister told the committee that most asylum seekers did not lodge their claims at the border but waited until they had a permit.

"The minister told us that many people in the latter category tend to have unfounded claims as asylum seekers. For example, two years ago only 300 people out of 1800 who sought asylum in New Zealand qualified."

- NZPA

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Feature: Immigration