New Zealand will apologize to Pacific Islanders for ‘dehumanizing’ dawn immigration raids, Ardern says

New Zealand’s plan to formally apologize for immigration raids in the 1970s that targeted Pacific Islanders is being hailed as a long-overdue gesture, though some activists say it is not enough.

The unexpected Monday announcement from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who characterized the raids as “dehumanizing,” left some Pacific Islanders in tears. “I felt there was a chance this might happen but I never thought it would happen so quickly,” Josiah Tualamali’i, who had started a letter-writing campaign to request the apology, told Stuff.co.nz.

The “Dawn Raids,” so named because they often occurred early in the morning, took place from 1974 to 1976 after New Zealand’s economy crashed. Samoans, Tongans and other Pacific Islanders who had come to the country as desperately needed migrant laborers were suddenly accused of taking jobs away from New Zealanders, prompting a crackdown on those suspected of overstaying their visas.

Armed police officers would wake up families in the middle of the night to demand proof of citizenship, while people who did not look White were told to carry identification at all times and would be randomly stopped on the street. Churches, schools and workplaces were routinely raided.

There is “clear evidence” that the raids were discriminatory, Ardern said Monday. When computerized immigration records were introduced in New Zealand in 1977, they showed that 40 percent of people who overstayed their visas were British or American. But those immigrants, who were largely White, evaded scrutiny and were rarely targeted for deportation. Meanwhile, New Zealand’s native Maori people frequently faced harassment because they were mistaken for migrants.

At a Monday news conference, Aupito William Sio, New Zealand’s minister for Pacific peoples, tearfully recalled how officers showed up at his family’s home early one morning with a “frothing” police dog. He described a sense of helplessness as officers shined flashlights in his father’s face, then took away two family members whose visas had expired. He said they had been preparing to go home to Samoa and wanted to do a few more overtime shifts before they left.

The experience was “traumatizing” for his entire family, Sio said.

“We felt as a community we were invited to come to New Zealand. We responded to the call to fill the labor that was needed,” he said. “When the country felt they no longer needed us, they turned on us.”

Calling the raids a “defining moment” in New Zealand’s history, Ardern said she plans to deliver a formal apology at a commemoration later this month. New Zealand’s government has issued similar apologies for discriminatory policies that targeted Chinese immigrants in the 19th century and injustices carried out during the colonial administration of Samoa, she noted.

“While we cannot change our history, we can acknowledge it, and we can seek to right a wrong,” Ardern said.

The Polynesian Panthers, a New Zealand-based organization advocating for the rights of Pacific Islanders and the native Maori population, had campaigned for the apology. But in the wake of Ardern’s announcement, some activists said they wanted concrete policy actions.

Will ‘Ilolahia, a co-founder of the group, told Newshub that roughly 10,000 Pacific Islanders living in New Zealand today have overstayed their visas and should be given a pathway to permanent residency. Many have been living in the country and paying taxes for well over a decade, he noted.

“This is a good chance to show the rest of the world that this is how we treat people,” he said.

New Zealand has not indicated whether it plans to compensate Pacific Islanders who were affected by the raids. Manase Lua, another co-founder of the group, said he feared doing so would only spark division. “You cannot compensate my family, my dad’s already passed away,” he told Radio New Zealand.

A better response, he said, would be to create a pathway to citizenship for Pacific Islanders with expired visas so such injustices do not recur.