Another wall
Is Trump’s malign influence spreading?
A prominent international human rights activist has no idea if she’ll be able to attend an international conference in Auckland following lengthy delays with her visa.
Critics say Immigration New Zealand’s slow response to keynote speaker Gulalai Ismail’s application is shocking and embarrassing.
Why yes, it is – Gulalai Ismail of all people. She does brilliant work, she’s received international awards, she’s a star.
The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) is meeting in Auckland in early August to discuss projects and policy. It campaigns against human rights abuses, particularly from religious influences, and has representatives at the European Union and United Nations.
Gulalai Ismail from Pakistan has been campaigning since she was 14 for girls’ rights to education and women’s rights. She has faced death threats and been attacked more than once, but continued her work from outside the country, Humanist Society of NZ president Sara Passmore said.
One of the girls whose rights to education she has campaigned for is Malala Yousufzai. I learned of her existence via Twitter the day Malala was shot – they were close and she was distraught. What on earth is NZ doing?
Ismail’s visa application was made after mid-April, but has not had confirmation it has been granted, and two Immigration offices had given contradictory answers about its status. Another board member had been denied entry, one was still awaiting an answer, and another was initially denied and only granted a visa after a lawyer interceded.
That last one was Leo Igwe.
All four do work to make their countries and the world a better place, and were all “heroes” in their own right. The response from Immigration NZ was a shock, and “embarrassing for New Zealand”, she said.
The Humanist Society of New Zealand will host the international assembly and has planned its own conference alongside, so union members can take part and be speakers.
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A woman who campaigns for sex education in Uganda was denied entry because Immigration NZ deemed her at risk of overstaying, and a man who is part of a group starting schools in Uganda is still waiting to find out if he will be granted entry, months after applying. The idea the members would overstay here, when they were heavily invested in projects overseas was laughable, Passmore said.
Nigerian Leo Igwe just finished a PhD in Germany, and arrived in the country this week. He said he was not given a reason his visa was declined initially, but after doing extensive international travel it was a surprise, and he believes it is likely because he holds a passport from a poor country.
What Donald Trump elegantly calls a “shithole country.” He, a criminal and grifter, considers poverty contemptible.
“One of the major issues the world is facing today is religious extremism, and no other organisation I know has a mission that can help the entire world tackle this issue,” he said.
“I’m surprised that New Zealand has a policy that would be applied this way. Countries like New Zealand should not undermine the goals and mission of IHEU which is for the good of the world, by making it difficult for humanists from throughout the world to attend.”
Indeed. I seriously do hope Trump’s influence is not spreading.
I have friends who moved to Australia (from the US) some years back. They’ve commented that immigration has been restricted a great deal since, and it they were trying to get in today, they’re not sure if they’d be able to.
New Zealand tends to be in synch with Australia on issues like these, so they’re going much the same route, looking to restrict immigration across the board, putting in more stringent requirements for skilled-worker visas, and so on. Some of their political parties are proposing cutting it way down, from about 70,000 a year to 10,000.
Even Jacinda Ardern, their liberal social democrat prime minister whose stay-at-home boyfriend takes care of their young baby, who was celebrated here recently, would like to cut immigration:
Keep in mind a parliamentary democracy like New Zealand has a prime minister elected by their parliament, so you’d generally expect their parliament to be mostly on the same page as the prime minister (you can’t really get a system with a big political divide like the US). So it’s unlikely there’s much Trump influence.
Immigration has turned into one of these ridiculously polarized issues where each side is convinced the other is completely out of line. To their opponents, one side wants to allow completely unrestricted immigration and doesn’t care if our country will be severely damaged by an influx it can’t handle, and the other side wants to restrict immigration because they’re horrible racists that hate brown people.
Like it or not, countries have a level of immigration they can handle well, and beyond that there start to be serious problems. This is just simple logistics. Wanting to keep immigration within a level that can be handled well isn’t racist or evil (although racist and evil people may use logistics as an excuse, of course).
As for these visas, it sounds like typical bureaucracy. Pencil pushers are putting people through the system without regard for their human rights leadership status, and they’re probably getting treatment no worse than anybody else. The people from poorer countries probably got denied because a computer checks stats that show people from those countries are historically much more likely to overstay their visas, and the computer doesn’t take into account that these are famous human rights leaders coming specifically to speak at a conference.
Probably after several appeals everyone will get their visas…just in time to be two months late for the conference. Or, more optimistically, some government official will hear of this, step in, and get the bureaucrats to expedite things.
First up, I read this in local media yesterday and was more than a little appalled. I’ll write to my local MP.
I can assure you that although NZ has it’s own home grown versions of trump supporters (thoroughly deplorable), our Government is not driven by such ideology. Not even the National Party (not currently in power).
We do have a restrictive and bureaucratic mass of visa types. If you want to get into NZ as a skilled migrant it’s hard. I’ve sponsored two employees that way. I’d only just scrape in myself if I hadn’t been born here! The Visa’s that Ardern was referring to is largely a particular category of visa used by international students. This allowed students to work while studying. In practice what happened was that a whole bunch of ESOL and Tech training organisations suddenly sprung up explicitly touting this as a route to gaining points toward a visa that would allow permanent residency. In practice a huge number of these students were signing up for courses and then ending up working in convenience stores, takeaway food shops, as cleaners and other minimum wage occupations. Often they were taken advantage of by unscrupulous employers (often their own countrymen) who told them if they complained they would loose their jobs and so face eventually having to leave NZ.
Utterly unsatisfactory all around. In the meantime Auckland, our largest city, has been undergoing a sustained period of unprecedented increase in house prices, traffic congestion and development that neither the available public funding nor construction sector are equipped to cope with. Housing is seriously unaffordable and we have had, by our standards, an explosion of homelessness and other social ills that are part and parcel of such situations.
There is no easy fix, but there is a need to shift what immigration we have into skills that we’re short of, rather than skills we are not. None of that is the reason for, or an excuse for, the delay or putative reason for these particular people not getting visas.
Rob@2
Most of your comments could apply to Australia as well, particularly the scams run by unscrupulous employers and phoney training colleges. Also playing the race card doesn’t work so well since many immigrants/students are exploited by employers from the same ethnic groups. So we can expect more caution in issuing visas.The delay in Ismail’s visa application seems unusual, though doesn’t it?
Skeletor@1
I’d agree with your comments in regard to mass immigration. There are economic and social arguments against high levels of population growth, however anyone who is sceptical about the benefits is often accused of racism.
I’ve never received satisfactory answers to two questions (1) ‘What is the optimum rate of immigration?” And (2) “Is, say, a 10% rate twice as beneficial as a 5 % rate?”
Actually visitors from the US and the U.K. have high rates of overstaying as well.
RJW, we have high rates of overstaying from white tourists, but I’ve never heard of a visa being denied to a white person because of that. The delay in issuing/denial of visa’s to these speakers is troubling.
I have had a reply from one MP already (Ruth Dyson). She is a senior member of the main governing party and says she is ‘puzzled by the delay’ and has already enquired asking if there is a particular reason, error or explanation.
If I hear anything further I’ll update.
Thanks for inquiring, Rob.
Ophelia, I’m sure the NZ Labour Party is immune to Trump’s influence.