| Politics/ Immigration: PACIFIC CRACKS DOWN ON IMMIGRATION CRIMES |
Islands fast becoming transit point
Cherelle Jackson
The tides have turned in the story of migration in the Pacific. For a long time, Samoans along with other Pacific nationals were on the other side of illegal migration—overstaying in developed countries and being hunted down in the wee hours of the morning to be returned to their home countries.
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Cracking down on immgration crimes... heads of regional immigration departments discussed the issue at their meeting in Apia last month.
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Now, it is a different story—the Pacific is fast becoming the transit point for fraudulent travel documents, people smuggling, human trafficking, immigration identity fraud, and the movement and management of third country nationals.
In 2006, one billion international arrivals were recorded annually, according to the People Smuggling and Illegal Trafficking report. A total of 7 million arrivals were recorded annually in the Pacific.
According to the report, illegal migration is increasing at a greater rate than arrivals.
The Pacific Immigration Directors’ Conference (PIDC) held in Apia last month agreed that immigration related crimes in the Pacific are indeed a growing concern and that nations must work together in order to prevent the problem growing further.
Heads of immigration from 18 countries and territories from across the Pacific spent three days in the well hidden conference room of Aggie Grey’s Hotel, discussing the future of immigration in the Pacific.
Chief Executive Officer of Samoa Immigration, Vaasatia Poloma Komiti was elected the new chairman of PIDC during the meeting.
In an interview with ISLANDS BUSINESS, Va’asatia said: “Increasingly the Pacific is now targeted by illegal migration, people smuggling, illegal movement of people and because Australia and New Zealand have effective preventative measures to such immigration crimes, these criminals are now using other countries in the Pacific, for instance Samoa, Tonga and Fiji, as transit points.”
At the meeting, Kiribati and Niue reported the prevalence of such cases.
“Niue has noted an increase in Asian nationals staying in the hope of being granted permanent residence of Niue, thus entitling them to enter New Zealand,” Va’asatia said.
According to him, Pacific Immigration agencies are not taking such incidences lightly.
Va’asatia compared the response by the region in a Samoan expression: “E le moe noa le fili,” which translates: “The enemy does not sleep defenseless.”
Immigration directors have agreed to work towards a support network and exchange of information amongst agencies on illegal movements and migrations.
“There is no use saying we want to curb the problem, yet we do not share information,” Vaasatia said.
Certain countries have refused the dissemination of such information, according to the new chairman.
“For security purposes, some countries will think twice before releasing such information but that will not help us if they only inform us when a Tom, Dick or Harry has arrived right at the last minute,” Va’asatia said.
The PIDC is now working on mechanisms that allow countries to receive information well in advance. According to Va’asatia, this can only work as a preventative mechanism against the further spread of immigration related crimes.
Currently, Samoa has a Border Management System (BMS) that is on the same level as Australia and New Zealand.
The system enables the quick checking of people and travel documents through immigration and also tracks the duration of stay and warns immigration when someone has overstayed.
Unfortunately, the system is only designed for visitors and not transit passengers, therefore letting slip three Chinese nationals earlier this year who overstayed by more than three months—well beyond their 24-hour transit time.
“The thing with the Chinese is something we are trying to change. Under the law, someone can stay here for up to seven days in transit, simply because of flight schedules, so that’s why we are a bit liberal. In a sense, we are giving them a lot of time to transit,” Va’asatia said.
Asked what can be done about the problem, Va’asatia said there would be a need to change the legislation.
“In the interim, before that is effective, our immigration officers need to be ever so vigilant,” he said.
As a result of foreign nationals overstaying in the region, former chairman of PIDC Api Fiso says it poses unnecessary costs on local economies.
“Because Pacific countries find it hard to remove people they cannot identify or are travelling on false documents, it’s very expensive to remove them from Pacific countries to other places in the world, more expensive than any other regions, so those problems can sit with Pacific countries for a few hours to a few years, so when that problem is sitting in a country for a long time, it’s at a very heavy cost to that country,” Fiso said.
Fiso is spearheading the Pacific Regional Immigration Identity Project which also involves Samoa. The aim of the project, according to him, is to assist countries in sharing information on ways to better deal with identity fraud through training, Information Technology and other initiatives.
The project was mandated by the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders back in 2004 and commissioned by PIDC in 2006 at the Wellington meeting.
According to PIDC, the project is part of a regional effort to realise the objectives of the Pacific Plan and the Millennium Development Goals. The work of PIDC is coordinated by a permanent secretariat based in Suva, Fiji.
According to the head of secretariat, Matt Gibbs, the region needs to improve its border management systems to account for new and advanced immigration related crimes.
“It means new border management, IT systems, it means updating outdated legislations, a number of countries are still operating on legislations that were enacted in the 1940s which do not take into account new crime types and things like identity fraud that we are starting to see now, so there is a real drive to improve and build capacity within the region,” Gibbs said.
More and more countries are starting to realise the extent of the problem in the Pacific and are actively pursuing the establishment of preventative mechanisms.
Gibbs said: “Using forums like this, there is a requirement that they put pressure on their governments, raise awareness with their governments to start improving border management and building capacity for the safety of the region.”
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