Regional Roundtable on Irregular Migration by Sea in the Asia- Pacific Region Presented by: Peter Elms Immigration New Zealand
Feb 23, 2016
Regional Roundtable on Irregular Migration by Sea in the Asia-Pacific Region
Presented by:Peter Elms
Immigration New Zealand
Two broad concerns:
• Responding efficiently and humanely to an irregular migration event
• Preventing such events happening in the first place.
Other panellists will address the former; this presentation is on the latter.
Focus on Prevention
• What can we do, individually and collectively, to prevent irregular movements by sea?
• To do so we must reduce the role of people smugglers in our region
• By reducing the demand for the services of the smugglers it follows that the supply will reduce
• The question therefore for economies is how do we address our own push / pull factors that incentivise people to use people smugglers
Supply & Demand
• Addressing the environmental factors that push people to place their lives in the hands of smugglers
• Ensure refugee protection and determination processes are in place and working efficiently
• Provide refugee re-settlement opportunities to incentivise the use of legitimate processes
• Maintain effective immigration policies and border controls to deal effectively with illegal migration
Influencing Push / Pull Factors
• Criminalisation
• Ratification of the UNTOC and its protocols• on trafficking in person• Smuggling of migrants
• National legislation that makes people smuggling illegal
• Critical first steps
Influencing Push / Pull Factors continued
• National authorities properly trained and resourced to pursue people smuggling syndicates
• Intelligence agencies willing and able to focus on people smuggling ventures
• Sharing intelligence both domestically and internationally
Investigation / Intelligence
• To persuade people not to use the service of people smugglers
• Many lessons learned: Some messages work better than others Some methods of delivery work better Need to tailor to the audience Need to pool information develop best practice
Public Awareness - Information Campaigns
• International agreements on combined prevention, disruption and deterrence measures
• Both national and international Share information Share expertise Capacity building
Cooperation
• Bali Process is already contributing on all these fronts: International cooperation, including the RSO Also with UNHCR, IOM, UNODC Sharing information (including UNODC Voluntary
Reporting System) Workshop on UNTOC protocols
• How working on policy guides for national implementation Training on investigation/prosecution
• New links forming between RSO and JCLEC and other regional institutions
Intelligence : Forum hosted by New Zealand Information campaigns : some work in 2009; RSO
interested in developing a project
Good News !