New tension over deportations has been brewing between Australia and New Zealand.

The bilateral trans-Tasman relationship is one of the closest in the world, but the two nations have been at odds in recent weeks over a 15-year-old boy with New Zealand citizenship who was determined to have a “substantial criminal record” and deported from Australia. The teenager, who reportedly requested to be removed from the country, is believed to be the first minor to be deported by Australia as part of a controversial policy of deporting criminal offenders, even those who have lived there for most of their lives.

“Where we take issue is that we’ve had a large proportion—about a third of those who have been deported have not been in New Zealand for the last 10 years,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said last week. “In some cases, they’ve never even been to New Zealand. They don’t have family ties here. They don’t have connections here.”

The row stems from changes to Australian immigration law that apply a character test and allow immigrants’ visas to be canceled and for them to be deported if they are assessed to be a security risk. Since new rules were issued in 2014, approximately 6,300 visas have been canceled, often for drug offenses. The controversy has been heightened by comments from Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, who compared the removal policy to “taking the trash out.”

While the details of the trans-Tasman situation are unique, many elements will be familiar to readers in other parts of the world. The question of how to treat noncitizens who have spent most of their lives in their destination countries has been a vexing one, particularly when those migrants run afoul of the law. Often there are undercurrents of race and ethnicity that complicate the matter further. As the situation Down Under shows, these types of challenges can put pressure on even the closest of relationships.

Best regards,
Julian Hattem
Editor, Migration Information Source
[email protected]