Government opposes amnesty

Amnesties for illegal overstayers have a poor record of success in most countries where they have been tried (see here, here and here).

Now the New Zealand Department of Immigration admits that they’ve haven’t been very successful in New Zealand either.

Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman told a government select committee last week the government is not considering another amnesty for overstayers as the previous amnesty in 2000 had proved to be a failure.

New Zealand currently has about 16,000 overstayers, with about a third coming from Samoa and Tonga.