What is Labour leader Andrew Little thinking supporting people who fraudulently came to New Zealand getting to stay?
Why does he want people who commit fraud to get to stay whilst his party is disputing the approval of New Zealand citizenship of a billionaire who has supported New Zealand through a disaster, helped to create jobs and has promised future investment in New Zealand?
Yesterday I read this article http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/89192274/Labour-leader-Andrew-Little-offers-deportee-support and it really annoyed me. If you haven’t been following this story, basically a group of Indian students got caught having obtained a student visa by way of deception. They paid a visa agent in India to falsify documents so they were able to show that they had the money to come to New Zealand and support themselves, which is a requirement to get the visa. They are now claiming they had the money to support themselves but used fraudulent documents because that is what their immigration agent wanted. But if that was true, why did they sign off on fraudulent documents rather than insist the correct documents were used? Surely if you had the money then you would not sign a false document but use actual proof that you met the criteria for entry.
Allowing them to stay after being caught in this act of deception would be completely wrong. They are saying that going back home will ruin them because it means a deportation stamp in their passports. It will also mean they won’t be able to apply to any other countries because of the deportation and also that they won’t be able to apply for jobs in India because they have been deported from another country. I don’t know if it is true that you cannot work in India if you have a deportation stamp in your passport, as they are Indian citizens I don’t see why this would affect their ability to work in India. Although Salaria claim’s in this article they planned to study here, work for a year and then return to work in the family business so the deportation stamp won’t effect this particular families future work anyway. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11794333. I also find it odd that they haven’t told their parents. If they haven’t done anything wrong why wouldn’t they let their parents know what was going on? Maybe their parents would be supportive. As this article says, http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/why-are-so-many-indian-students-coming-to-new-zealand, a lot of Indian students come not only for the education but because the year long New Zealand work experience means it is a lot easier to apply to become a New Zealand resident and ultimately citizen. Given the couple in the above story both have parents with heart conditions, and New Zealand has special immigrant categories for family reunification – and offers free health care, you can see why not getting deported is so important to them. I don’t think it is about the money, or the education, they don’t want to be deported because they never had any intention of returning. I mean, come on, who pays $20,000 to a visa agent. My husband travels a lot for work, he has applied to a lot of countries for visas and the only time he used an agent was when he went to Saudi Arabia, or Russia, and that was because of the language barrier and time pressure. So why did these people all use an agent to get to NZ? They could speak the language, as they were applying to study here. The Russian visa cost us a few hundred dollars, the cost was not in the tens of thousands. When you are paying someone tens of thousands of dollars to obtain a visa surely alarm bells go off? It is unclear if some of this was the fees at Uni, however, they still signed off on fake documents, so they are not innocent victims as they claim, but deliberately defrauded a country who they are now asking for leniency. Why should we give them leniency? Others missed out on coming because they were honest. We don’t want people who commit fraud in our country.
These students were unable to fill in a student visa application on their own, yet they managed to get 600 people to sign a petiton? http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/84631291/Indian-students-plan-last-stand-protest-to-avoid-deportation-from-New-Zealand%20Petition Sorry, but when you have been caught out in one fraud a petition is worthless.
What bugs me as well is according to them this is all the New Zealand government’s fault. I’m sorry, but generally, when fraud is committed the person who the fraud is committed against is not blamed for the deception of the criminal party. http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/83854095/Indian-community-blames-NZ-authorities-schools-for-student-deportations Why is the Indian government not cracking down on these fraudulent businesses? The New Zealand government can’t stop what people are doing in another country, it is up to the Indian government to shut down these dodgy places. The students are frausters too. They signed the fraudulent documents knowing that they were fake, they knew how much money they had and whether or not it meet requirements, so they knew whether or not the financial section of the document was wrong. They most definitely aren’t victims, but why are these fraudulent businesses still allowed to operate in India? The New Zealand government and ultimately New Zealand people are the victims, as we have a criteria for entering and they used fraud to get around it. Quite frankly I think they should think themselves lucky that they are not imprisoned because fraud is a crime.
Andrew Little supporting these fraudsters makes no sense given it clashes with Labour’s immigration policy, http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/80803783/Labour-calls-for-curb-on-work-visas-to-take-pressure-off-local-work-force. Whilst the policy is in line with students working whilst studying, them staying on and getting work permits and working in the hospitality industry is exactly something his immigration policy is against, as this article states, http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/323659/indian-students-lose-bid-to-stay-in-nz, they can obtain a work visa for up to three years once they have completed studying in NZ. The only requirement to study in NZ is to have funds to support yourself (although hopefully a criminal check is also done!). The Unite Union is supporting those who came out on these fraudulent student visas as many of them are fast food workers, http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/business/83854095/Indian-community-blames-NZ-authorities-schools-for-student-deportations. We want skilled immigrants, not people working in fast food places. New Zealanders are paying benefits to people who could be in fast food jobs as they are jobs that are trained on-the-job so anyone can be trained up to do them. They are taking the very jobs off New Zealanders that Labour wants for New Zealand’s unemployed. It is absolutely hypocritical of him to be supporting them to stay.
In contrast, the Labour party are against the citizenship of Peter Theil. Peter Theil is a billionaire. Why don’t Labour think he should have got his citizenship? Because he didn’t meet the criteria of having stayed in NZ for certain period of time. However, there is a provision in the citizenship process that allows citizenship to be approved if there are exceptional circumstances, http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/89000898/labour-cry-foul-over-thiel-citizenship. The exceptional circumstances were the benefit he was going to bring to New Zealand. He donated $1million to the Christchurch earthquake appeal and also invested in a company called Xero, which created jobs. He also has promised to get involved in other business ventures in New Zealand and help promote New Zealand on the world stage. He was honest with immigration that he had not lived in New Zealand long enough to meet the criteria and also advised them that he had no intention of making New Zealand his new permanent home. Personally, I would prefer someone who is honest and has proven to be supporting New Zealand both financially with the Christchurch earthquake donation, and by creating jobs such as with Xero, to get citizenship than to assist fraudsters to work towards citizenship by letting them get a work visa at the end of their studies after lying about having the money to meet the financial criteria and who are taking jobs in unskilled work preventing New Zealand unemployed getting work.
On one hand we have an honest person who is spending lots of money in New Zealand helping others and creating jobs, this is who Labour want to leave as New Zealand isn’t for sale. Then on the other hand we have people who paid an Indian visa agent thousands of dollars (so New Zealand is apparently for sale, it is just the New Zealand people didn’t see any of that money) so they could get fraudulent documents to meet the financial criteria to enter New Zealand, who Labour are supporting staying even though they illegally brought their way into New Zealand and are taking jobs from New Zealanders. The Labour party make no sense what so ever. Let those benefiting the country come and stay, let those trying to defraud the country leave. Pretty simple!
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