A candle light vigil in Auckland s Aotea Square protested the treatment migrant workers are receiving.
Thousands of people live in Aotearoa illegally, surviving in a shadow world of cash jobs, without benefits or healthcare. In part three of a series going inside the world of overstayers, National Correspondent Steve Kilgallon examines the argument for an amnesty. “If you are by the sea,” says Wang , a Chinese builder who has overstayed his visa and is living illegally in New Zealand, “you can step back if the tides are rising. But now it’s like someone is standing behind with a gun pointed to you, do you dare to step back?”
Chinese workers agents, visa approvals need to be probed - lawyer rnz.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from rnz.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
SPECIAL REPORT â by Selwyn Manning.
On Tuesday, March 30, we lodged a series of questions to the Minister of Immigration Kris Faafoi, seeking answers to allegations that 10 Chinese workers, who were detained in custody pending deportation orders, were in fact victims of a human trafficking scam.
Throughout last week, the ten workersâ lawyer, Matt Robson, and union advocate Mike Treen of Unite Union, and been racing against the clock, seeking to halt deportation orders that Immigration New Zealand officials were advancing â seemingly with haste.
Two days later (April 1), two of the ten workers in fact received their deportation orders and were en-route to Auckland International Airport, escorted by Police.
Source: Unite Union â Mike Treen
The Chinese worker who left police custody on the way to the airport on Thursday night had a charge of absconding, which carries a maximum sentence of five years, withdrawn when he appeared in the Auckland District Court this morning.
The worker who was in a very distressed state after 10-days in custody had simply opened an unlocked door of the patrol car on the way to the airport and got out. He had hoped to recover lost property and money he was owed. He then walked for seven hoursâ confused and disoriented before speaking to an early morning exerciser who spoke Mandarin and they agreed that he should surrender himself to the police again.