Why we need Immigration law changes

A foreigner can usually get to stay for over five years in NZ by merely claiming they seek asylum. There is a long and complicated set of hearings, tribunals and appeals to go through to get people removed. The process needs to be changed so that final decisions are made within say a year.

We see in the HOS a group of Romanian asylum seekers stole more than $100,000 from elderly women in a bank and Eftpos card scam. Now in this case they started offending straight away, but the case remains that the vast majority of asylum seekers are not genuine refugees.

Putting aside their criminality, the Romanians claimed asylum on the basis the husband (who had his wife and son with him) also was gay and that “Homosexuality is illegal in Romania”.

Well not according to Wikipedia which says that since 2000 there has been an anti-discrimination law that explicitly outlaws discrimination against sexual orientation, and the current President has said he has nothing against same-sex marriage. A long long way from being illegal – a fact the HOS accepted at face value in its story.