Report cites Immigration officers' lack of sympathy

A report into the foiled deportation of a 10-year-old girl and her cousin to Samoa this month has criticised Immigration Service officials for their lack of judgment and sympathy.

The report, carried out by the Immigration Service at the request of Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel, also recommended that the custodial removal of overstayers remain a last resort.

It said that while immigration officers generally followed best practice processes, staff needed to understand better the principles underlying those processes.

Ms Dalziel said the officers probably did not understand at the outset the sensitivity of the case, and the complicated nature of the situation became apparent only during the day.

The report said that at 7.30 am on June 8, two Immigration Service officers and three police officers took 10-year-old Cristine Tilo and her cousin Seneuefa Tilo, 21, from their Hamilton home on the understanding that both were short-term overstayers.

A man at the house produced a Samoan adoption document for Cristine, who officials understood to be a dependant of Ms Tilo.

The immigration officer who had arranged the removal, identified in the report as IO1, decided the removal should continue, believing "from previous experience" that such documents were not recognised in New Zealand.

Police drove the pair to Auckland Airport for a flight to Samoa that night, but IO1 received a call from a senior officer of the Border and Investigations Branch, identified as IO3, to tell him Cristine's case was being investigated.

IO1 was later told that neither of the cousins would be leaving after a court granted an interim order. He drove to Auckland to pick up the cousins and returned them to Hamilton at 11.15 that night.

The report said that, contrary to newspaper reports, Cristine was never held in a police cell and was not taken from the house screaming, although she did cry when farewelling relatives at the airport.

Also, the service disputed claims it had not inquired about Cristine's care arrangements if she had been sent back to Samoa, saying she would have returned to the same family she had lived with before coming to NZ.

The lawyer who acted for the cousins, Alex Hope, said he was pleased that the report noted deficiencies in the process, but said it did not go far enough.

"It's not helpful to scapegoat the immigration officers concerned. My feeling is that it is an institutional problem."