AN estimated 150 Indian students are fighting being kicked out of New Zealand because their supporting visa documents were forged by agents in India.
The students have called for a reprieve and went to lobby a public meeting on Monday held by Deputy Prime Minister Bill English and National Party MP Parmjeet Parmar, at which the protesting students and their supporters were barred from entering by police armed with Tasers.
Organiser of the protest outside the meeting Anu Kaloti, of the Migrant Workers Association, said some of the students could be deported within days. ‘There’s a real urgency around this, until now we were very hopeful for that meeting with the Minister of Immigration but it hasn’t happened.
‘Time is not on the students’ sides. It feels like now or never,’ Kaloti said. The students’ case was raised in parliament last week and gained support from Labour, Green Party and New Zealand First. They’ve also been backed by the Council of Trade Unions and others.
Kaloti said students had ‘forked out tens of thousands of dollars to come here and study – and now their dreams of finding work here were shattered through no fault of their own.’
She said the Indian agents who organised their visas were responsible for the fraudulent documents yet they had escaped punishment, with some still in business and promising more students the chance to come to New Zealand.
Some agents had closed and reopened in the name of another family member, she said. ‘Whenever the students try to reach them they have changed phone numbers or email addresses.’
Hafiz Syed, a 28-year-old who moved from India to Auckland to study computing was among the students to find out his supporting documents were faked. His status was currently listed as being here unlawfully, so he could be deported at any moment. It had created a ‘nightmare’ past few weeks, he said.
‘No machine made could calculate the pressure on my mind. It’s very stressful, I can’t put it into words,’ he said. ‘We’ve been banging our heads for a couple of weeks, but they’re still not responding to us.’
The students and their supporters are particularly incensed at the failure of several National MPs of Indian ethnic origin who claim to represent the Indian community but have been conspicuously silent on this issue.
The students say they are victims of unscrupulous India-based immigration agents who have used fake financial documents to get them into the country on student visas. These students had no idea that fake documents were used by their agents. Deporting them for something which they have not done is unfair.
The students held a peaceful protest at the beginning of September outside the offices of National Party list MP Dr Parmjeet Parmar. A petition by the name of ‘Justice for Indian Students in NZ’ has been delivered to the Minister of Immigration and the Prime Minister. There has also been support from the wider community through public meetings.
Earlier this week the issue was raised during question time in Parliament by the Labour Party, The Green Party and New Zealand First. Representatives from the Catholic Church in Aotearoa, the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, the Council of Trade Unions and other members of civil society including Dr Rodney Harrison QC have been requesting to see the Minister of Immigration on behalf of the students for over a week now.
However, the Minister continues to ignore their request. Despite such outcry from all quarters, the government has not made any efforts to deliver justice to the Indian students. Instead the government continues to portray the Indian students facing deportation as criminals.
The students’ future is in the hands of the New Zealand government. The decision to deploy police armed with Tasers against the vulnerable migrant workers and students and to physically bar migrants from what was billed as a public meeting with National’s ‘Indian community’ MP, was utterly condemned.
The ‘go back home to where you came from’ comments from National Party supporters was a dead giveaway. Rachel Mackintosh, Vice President of the NZ Council of Trade Unions, asked the commanding police officer why the protocol not to deploy Taser weapons on democratic political demonstrations has been broken tonight.
His answer – ‘Don’t care. Not my problem, it’s yours – make a complaint.’ The government has also refused to meet a delegation of community and religious leaders to appeal against their inhumane decision.
• Meanwhile, a Dunedin protester who was dragged by the hair by a police officer is calling for better investigations into police misconduct. Unite Union organiser Olive McRae was in Auckland taking part in a mass protest against the signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) trade deal in February when the incident occurred.
It took place as small groups of protesters broke away from the main body of the march, and attempted to block roads and intersections around the Auckland CBD.
McRae said she filed a complaint with the Independent Police Conduct Authority. However, she said the complaint was then handed over to the police to investigate themselves.
‘For them to investigate themselves, and find that what he did was wrong, but tell me that they’re not going to say if they’re going to do anything about it, and that they’re not going to tell me who this man is – it makes me really uncomfortable.’ McRae said the training of the officer in question was inadequate.
‘The training that led up to that day, which the police took part in, he was not involved in that, so he should never have been on the front line and this is clearly the reason why.’ She said the event has scarred her – but she will continue to protest. ‘Protesting in New Zealand is a big part of our democratic process, and it has been for a long time and I hope that it continues to be.’
In February, Superintendent Richard Chambers claimed no unnecessary force was used by police, despite photos depicting McRae being dragged by her hair, and a man being pushed back by his throat. He claimed that some protestors endangered themselves by attempting to run onto the motorway and actions taken by police were in the interest of public safety.
