Immigration officials investigating recruitment agencies

Immigration New Zealand fraud officials from Auckland are working with the Ashburton District Safer Communities Council in the wake of findings by the council that some recruitment agencies are skimming a fee from migrant farm workers' pay on an ongoing basis and illegally withholding migrants' passports and qualifications.

The revelation comes as issues of migrant pay and working conditions widen following large increases in farm placements in New Zealand during the past year.

Newly-appointed community development worker for the council Raewyn Barclay told Courier Country that allegations of pay skimming and passport retention had been supported by the council's own investigations that saw one Mid Canterbury migrant's passport returned to the council's Cass St Ashburton office within hours of a request by Immigration New Zealand following a council tip-off to the department.

The migrant worker had been trying for eight months to get the passport.

She said immigration officials who visited Ashburton recently for a four-hour session included a compliance officer for the South Island and an officer specialising in working with farm workers.

"It was a huge coup to get them here," Ms Barclay said.

"But now, that initial meeting has widened to include regular contact with the immigration fraud investigation team in Auckland and just in the last week I have taken advice from the immigration advisory authority, because we have been very concerned about what we can and cannot say to migrants.

"We are not immigration advisers."

Ms Barclay, whose job is funded by the Department of Internal Affairs, but based at the Ashburton Safer Communities Council and established to grow networks between the various groups, said the migrant farm worker issue in New Zealand was a disgrace.

"I am absolutely appalled that there are New Zealanders fleecing our migrant workers.

"It's total exploitation and a common occurrence in Mid Canterbury," she said.

Ms Barclay, a former Child, Youth and Family case worker, said New Zealand-based recruitment agencies were not all at fault, and neither were most of the country's farmers, many of whom were ignorant about what was going on.

"It's hard to know just how many recruitment agencies are operating in New Zealand.

"The potential is there for unscrupulous operators.

"However, New Zealand does have some important consumer safeguards.

"But the problem is that agencies operating from overseas are not governed by our laws.

"And so how do you get the message to migrants not to use them? Some of these offshore agencies are using very clever names to make people think they must be legit," she said.

"Immigration fraud is looking at this, too."