UPDATED 1.42pm Nine Indian students facing deportation orders for visa fraud have been told no action will be taken against them today.

Their lawyer Alastair McClymont has just told them that Immigration NZ's compliance operations manager in Wellington had given him "an undertaking that nothing will happen today".

"He has offered the students the opportunity to depart voluntarily. I have already reported back to the manager that that is not going to happen," he said.

"He really doesn't know how he is going to deal with it."

About 35 journalists and supporters are at the Unitarian Church in Ponsonby which is sheltering the remaining students after one was detained this morning.

McClymont challenged immigration officials to lay legal charges against the students to allow a judge to decide whether the students intentionally defrauded officials.

"Under the Immigration Act, Immigration NZ has the ability to charge people with an offence of providing a fraudulent document and obtaining benefit from a fraudulent document," he said.

"By doing that they are able to defend themselves in court."

He said Immigration NZ had taken the position that the students were guilty because they signed their visa applications.

But Green MP Denise Roche said the students did not know that their agents had submitted fraudulent documents on their behalf.

"Frequently in their culture basically you hand over authority to whoever is doing it for you," she said.

However a talkback host on Auckland's Indian radio station Radio Tarana, Pawan Prasad, said all seven or eight callers who rang her show today said the students should be deported.

"Many of them are from India and they know how it works in India," she said.

"According to them, the students knew they did it."

Though McClymont said the students were being "completely ripped off".

"Clearly the Minister of Immigration has ignored all the pleas," he said.

"The associate minister has done nothing.

"We know that Immigration NZ has taken no action against the agents who have taken all the money.

"They have taken no action against the schools who have taken all this money.

"They don't seem to have taken any action against the immigration officers who allowed these people to come here without interviews."

He said some of the education agents who submitted fraudulent bank details for the students continued to operate.

"Some of the agents who created fraudulent documents are NZ citizens and we know the Government has taken no action against them whatsoever, because this is all about the money."

McClymont said Immigration NZ had told him the student detained this morning would be put on a plane to India on Friday.

"They are not going to have a humanitarian interview with him. They say he has had all his chances," he said.

He said immigration officers were waiting for instructions from Wellington before deciding whether to detain the students at the church.

Nine students are at the church waiting to hear their fate.

Auckland councillors Alf Filipaina, Cathy Casey and Efeso Collins are at the church offering support.

But Unitarian minister Rev Clay Nelson said Mayor Phil Goff declined to come. His office told Nelson that Goff met the students last year but "can't see any more he can do".

Immigration NZ Auckland area manager Alistair Murray confirmed that one Indian student was picked up this morning and was being held in custody while travel arrangements were being made for him to leave New Zealand.

"INZ does not wish to comment further for privacy and operational reasons," he said.

"Anyone facing deportation has the opportunity to leave New Zealand voluntarily and INZ encourages them to do so."

A 22-year-old man who flatted with the man who was detained at Blockhouse Bay said "more than eight" Immigration NZ officers arrived at the address at 8.15am today.

"They asked all of us to come in a big hall with our passports, and they picked him out," he said.

Police were not involved and the man subject to the deportation order went with the officers peacefully.

 

 

 

- NZ Herald