Immigration Policy or the Politics of Fear Against Asylum Seekers and Vulnerable Migrants?

Antonio Cadavid

Member of the Wellington Community Justice Project, a student-led charity at Te Herenga Waka’s Law School

When the Government speaks about asylum seekers, language of risk increasingly dominates the conversation. New Zealand migration policy relating to refugees appears to be shifting away from humanitarian protection and toward a risk-based approach, one that makes already vulnerable people even more vulnerable.  

Rather than treating asylum seekers as individuals seeking protection under international human rights and refugee law, this approach is pushing New Zealand toward “crimmigration.” This is a framework in which immigration law increasingly adopts the language, mechanisms, and punitive assumptions of criminal law. Under a crimmigration framework, migrants—particularly asylum seekers and irregular migrants—are treated less as rights-bearing individuals and more as potential offenders.

In March, the Immigration (Enhanced Risk Management) Amendment Bill was introduced to Parliament. This Bill has been presented as a technical reform designed to protect the integrity of New Zealand’s refugee and protection system. But its wording, design, and political context suggest something more troubling: a growing willingness to treat asylum seekers and vulnerable migrants as threats before treating them as people. 

The Bill has been accompanied by political and media narratives that encourage the public to view asylum seekers through the lens of risk. On the same day the Bill was introduced, an RNZ headline read: “Murderer, sex offenders among current asylum claimants.” The article quoted the Immigration Minister referring to 14 refugee claimants convicted of various offences, including murder, drug-related crimes, and sexual offences. 

This type of rhetoric reinforces a collective perception of asylum seekers as troublemakers—threats to national interests and public safety. It fuels fear and suspicion. Such perceptions often extend beyond asylum seekers to immigrants in vulnerable situations and, more broadly, to people from particular countries or ethnic backgrounds.

The Government is legislating without fully understanding the problem that it claims to be solving. Or worse, it is using legislation as a political tool to reinforce hostile rhetoric toward poor migrants and asylum seekers, effectively creating a problem that does not exist.

Among several concerning provisions, the Bill proposes preventing asylum claimants who have been granted a temporary visa from applying for another visa if they withdraw their claim. This is a punitive measure, framed as a deterrent against unmeritorious claims. 

The Immigration Minister’s public statements, as reported by the media, suggest that most asylum claims are unmeritorious. However, the Government lacks evidence on how many declined claims are abusive, as opposed to simply not meeting the legal test—a distinction  acknowledged in MBIE’s Regulatory Impact Statement.

The real issue appears to be the sharp increase in asylum applications in recent years, with more than 4000 applications currently in process from people from more than 70 countries. This is a surge the Government seems either unable or unwilling to manage adequately, whether because of incompetence, insufficient resources, poor planning, or lack of political interest. As a result, claims can take years to resolve. 

There is also limited understanding of the dynamics behind this increase. The global geopolitical context is becoming increasingly volatile, contributing to higher migration flows. At the same time, more than half of the applications originate from just two countries with strong economic links to New Zealand.  

This is a complex issue that requires complex thinking, research, and solutions—not overly simplistic responses grounded in a punitive logic more akin to criminal law than humanitarian protection. The principle of “balancing” national interests with individual rights, central to section 3 of the Immigration Act, does not allow unjustified limitations on human rights. Before introducing legislative changes that may affect fundamental rights, the government should prioritise understanding the issue, gathering robust data, and designing evidence-based policies that deter abusive claims without harming legitimate applicants.  

There are many legitimate and deeply human reasons why an asylum seeker may choose to withdraw a refugee claim and pursue a different immigration pathway. During the lengthy and uncertain asylum process, people’s lives continue to evolve. They fall in love, build relationships with citizens or residents, and become eligible for partnership visas. They may secure employment opportunities that allow them to apply for work visas. They may begin studies and seek student pathways instead. 

Under the proposed reform, asylum seekers would become trapped within a rigid administrative system that can take years to resolve. They would be left suspended in uncertainty, anxiety, and legal limbo, while others remain free to pursue alternative immigration pathways as their personal circumstances evolve.

This Bill centred on exclusion and punishment risks undermining fundamental democratic values. Public discourse that increasingly frames asylum seekers and vulnerable migrants as threats to national security, economic stability, or social order also creates broader risks for democracy and pluralism in New Zealand. It fosters fear-based policymaking, legitimises discrimination, and weakens social cohesion by encouraging suspicion toward migrant communities. In the medium and long term, such policies can deepen social division, increase marginalisation, and erode peace and political stability.

Ironically, the Bill would contribute to eroding the very values on which the country’s current reputation relies to attract wealthy investors and highly skilled workers.

Although the government does not pursue an openly anti-immigration policy, there is a noticeable contrast in its approach. While it supports and attracts wealthy migrants through mechanisms such as the “golden visa,” it simultaneously contributes—through policy and rhetoric—to an environment that fosters aversion toward poorer migrants and asylum seekers. 

The reality is that poverty, inequality, and unemployment have been increasing in New Zealand. In such a climate, and especially close to elections, asylum seekers and immigrants become easy targets. They serve as a smokescreen that distracts attention from the real causes of the country’s underlying structural issues, while also being cast as the source of those problems. It is a populistic political strategy replicated across many parts of the world. 

If the Government wants to protect the integrity of the refugee and protection system, it should start with evidence, not suspicion. It should design policy that targets actual abuse without punishing people seeking protection. It can protect integrity without treating vulnerability as a threat. 

Ultimately, poor legislative design is also a political choice.