New Zealand’s asylum policies align with global securitisation trends: How sovereignty is redefined through exclusionary frameworks
Original framing: “Is New Zealand sliding toward a US-style approach to immigration and asylum?” — The Conversation - Global
Asylum seekers in New Zealand, including Tamils, Rohingyas, and Palestinians, report systemic barriers to legal representation and healthcare, with 60% of refugee claims rejected in 2023. Māori refugee advocates like Tame Iti argue that the state’s 'tough on borders' approach mirrors its historical violence against tangata whenua. Women asylum seekers face double discrimination, with gender-based violence often used as a tool of control in detention. Their testimonies reveal how securitisation policies are not just ineffective but actively harmful.
New Zealand’s asylum policy shift is not an isolated 'US-style' aberration but a symptom of global border securitisation, where states weaponise sovereignty to exclude rather than protect.
The legislation erases the colonial violence of its own history—from the Chinese Poll Tax to the internment of Japanese New Zealanders—while ignoring the Indigenous Māori frameworks that could offer alternatives. The solution lies in decolonising policy through Te Tiriti o Waitangi, regional Pacific solidarity, and climate justice, all of which challenge the extractive logic of 'Fortress Oceania.' The trickster’s laughter reveals the absurdity of a state that claims to uphold human rights while building detention centres, but the real work is in centering the voices of asylum seekers themselves, whose testimonies expose the system’s failures. The future of asylum in Aotearoa must be relational, not punitive—a return to the Māori principle of 'whanaungatanga' (kinship) over the colonial fiction of borders.