At least two of the Indian students who were deported from New Zealand for overstaying fathered children while in the country, but have been denied entry back into New Zealand.
Palwinderjeet Singh was one of a group of Indian students who were forced to leave the country earlier this year.
While here, he fathered a child with his partner Nikki Harawira, who he met at Tauranga Library in June, 2015.
Immigration New Zealand assessed evidence, visited his home, and decided he was in a genuine relationship with Ms Harawira.
An immigration officer recommended accepting his application to return to New Zealand under the Family Partnership category, but it was declined.
Ms Harawira, a Kohanga Reo teacher based in the Bay of Plenty, says she is raising their child Tutemanawa alone, and is heartbroken by Immigration’s decision.
“This was not trying to marry him to keep him here, or pay me out, none of that,” she told Checkpoint with John Campbell.
“We’re totally genuine, and still very much in love. I just want him home.”
There is no dispute he overstayed in New Zealand, but Ms Harawira said he kept receiving broken promises from lawyers and an employer that he would be eligible to remain in the country, and was on a path to citizenship.
Immigration officers who visited her home were “lovely”, and the couple believed he would be allowed back in New Zealand under the Family Partnership category, but were told two months ago that his residence application was declined.
Immigration lawyer Alastair McClymont, who is representing the couple, said hundreds of people were in similar situations, as Immigration New Zealand had become increasingly punitive in recent years.
Despite an immigration officer recommending Mr Singh be allowed to enter New Zealand under the family category, higher management disagreed.
“There seems to be a different philosophy at play when you get to that level,” Mr McClymont said.
“At the moment the need to punish people for overstaying and to create the deterrents for people to do this again seems to over-ride pretty much everything else, including having New Zealand citizen spouses, children, children with medical problems …the need to keep the family together.
“Nothing else matters apart from the need to punish and to deter.”
This sort of punishment was not seen in the immigration system 10 years ago, and the only way the system seems to be run now is to “punish, punish, punish”, Mr McClymont said.
This is “regardless of the humanitarian pain that it is causing, and the pain for these young New Zealand citizen children who will have a Christmas with no father. And I would guess there would be hundreds of families on Christmas morning who would be in exactly the same situation.”
While some people may come to New Zealand to enter marriages of convenience, Mr McClymont said it wasn’t fair everyone was “tarred with the same brush”.
No remorse for past actions - Immigration
Immigration said in a statement that it considers partnership applications carefully.
It said the officer assessing the application acknowledged that the couple were in a genuine and stable relationship that was likely to endure.
However, that was outweighed by the fact Mr Singh had been unlawfully in New Zealand for more than one and half years and had not shown any remorse for his past actions, it said.
