Detention of Asylum Seekers across the world: How does New Zealand hold up?

India Bulman. Edited by Isabelle Becconsall-Ryan.

In Aotearoa New Zealand we like to think of ourselves as a welcoming place. Our clean, green country is one where all are welcomed and can thrive. However, this image we have manufactured for ourselves is misleading and rife with inaccuracies. These are particularly prominent when considering the position of asylum seekers in New Zealand. The indefinite and arbitrary detention of asylum seekers in New Zealand is a little known but pressing human rights issue in Aotearoa.

In New Zealand, asylum seekers can be detained when they are thought to be at risk of presenting a danger to the public, or their identity is in question. This offers wide discretionary powers to police and immigration officers, who have the authority to arrest and detain them.

While there is no dedicated system for migrant detention in Aotearoa, this does not mean that asylum seekers are not detained. Instead, it means that when they are, they are handled through the mainstream prison system.

In the past five years, New Zealand has imprisoned approximately 86 asylum seekers.

While relatively few are detained in New Zealand, those who are can be held for a very long time, as New Zealand law allows for indefinite detention of asylum seekers. Immigration officers can apply for a ‘warrant of commitment’, which extends the period of detention for 28 days. Because there is no restriction to the number of warrants that can be granted, there is no limit to the duration an asylum seeker can spend in prison.

Australia has one of the most restrictive refugee policies worldwide. Their mandatory detention policy means that any person entering the country without a valid visa must be detained indefinitely, with no review opportunities. This harsh political environment stems largely from the incident of the Tampa Ship in 2001. When the Tampa, holding hundreds of rescued asylum seekers, entered Australian waters, the prime minister instructed the military to board the ship. They were prevented from entering Australia and instead sent to Nauru, with some then sent to New Zealand. These asylum seekers were not permitted to even set foot in Australia, with leaders suggesting they posed some mystical but immediate threat to Australian safety.

The Tampa Affair is seen as the catalyst for several border protection laws in Australia and the ‘Pacific Solution’. The Solution involved the widespread use of offshore detention facilities to hold asylum seekers while their claims were processed. The fear of foreign invasion emphasised by the Tampa Ship incident continues to be visible in Australia today.

These views were intensified following 9/11. Australia feared a similar fate and cracked down on national security measures. As a result, they do not allow asylum seekers to enter Australia, instead sending them to detention centres out of Australian territories. One such facility is that of Manus Island.

This is essentially a prison camp, which removes asylum seekers’ identities by reducing them to a number. The system of control involves constant surveillance, implementing a perpetual feeling of discomfort. Behrouz Boochani, a former Manus Island detainee, reports that the freest space is the toilets, as this is the only place the guards do not follow you. Even here, they often bang on the door as a reminder of their control.

States are collectively doing very poorly in supporting asylum seekers. In the past, some countries such as Sweden and Germany exhibited aspirational immigration policies, however, after the tragic event of 9/11, a culture shift meant securitisation plays a larger role in policy. When combined with several large refugee crises in recent years, even governments with once reasonable policies have opted for a stricter approach. However, analysing these past approaches can be useful for considering possible avenues Aotearoa could go down. As a country with a comparatively small number of asylum seekers, we have an opportunity to lead the world and demonstrate what an effective and equitable immigration detention policy can look like.

With its central European location, Germany has accepted the most asylum seekers in the European Union since 2012. With the beginning of the European refugee crisis in 2015, Germany opened its arms to almost 900,000 asylum seekers within the year. While Germany became one of the largest recipients of migrants, the number of asylum seekers detained dropped. German courts and officials, such as the Head of the German Agency for the Prevention of Torture, scrutinised detention practices and promoted conversations about alternatives to detention altogether. Systemic change flows from the top, and when these conversations are being had between national decision-makers, true transformation can take place. As in Aotearoa, Germany also utilised the prison system for detention. However, after years of criticism, this is no longer the case. A European Union Court of Justice case (Bero v Bouzalmate) brought media attention to this issue and finally required Germany to house asylum seekers in specialised facilities. This shows that consistent pressure works, as it is the reason asylum seekers are no longer detained in prisons in Germany.

While Sweden has cracked down on asylum seekers in recent years, they were traditionally portrayed as a nation with more humane border practices. In comparison with neighbouring countries, detained asylum seekers in Sweden have fewer constraints on their freedom. They are not locked in their rooms at night, they have unlimited access to the internet, and are provided with a phone if they do not have one. Detention centres have libraries, gyms and common rooms with televisions. Sections of Sweden’s constitution regulate when asylum seekers can be detained and how they should be treated in detention, which should be humanely and with their dignity respected. In Aotearoa, we need legal guarantees that we will treat all people who enter at the border with the same respect owed to citizens. This should be the bare minimum.

Comparing Aotearoa’s detention policy with that of other countries highlights the unusual use of the prison system and how we must do better. Public pressure has influenced stricter policies in the past, but now is the time to use our collective voice to advocate for more humane and equitable measures.