By Colin Ambler\/cvnznews.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ACT is sharpening its case for a dedicated overstayer enforcement unit, after senior Labour MP Phil Twyford told 1News he would not support creating a specialised team within Immigration New Zealand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ACT Leader David Seymour said Twyford\u2019s position ignored the scale of the problem. \u201cPhil Twyford says we don\u2019t need a dedicated overstayer enforcement unit because Immigration New Zealand already has a compliance and investigation team,\u201d Seymour said. \u201cThe problem is we still have 20,980 known overstayers in New Zealand. Maybe Labour thinks this is okay, but ACT thinks twenty thousand overstayers is evidence the current system isn\u2019t working.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seymour argued that Immigration New Zealand\u2019s current structure is too broad, with staff responsible for everything from employer breaches and migrant exploitation to fraud, trafficking and visa violations. \u201cThose are all important jobs, but when everyone is responsible for everything, nobody is properly accountable for one thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ACT\u2019s proposal would create a unit focused solely on overstayer detection and verification, including working with platform\u2011based employers such as Uber and DoorDash to ensure workers have legal status. Seymour said this approach would enforce the law \u201cfairly and practically.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The plan has drawn criticism from the Green Party, with MP Ricardo Men\u00e9ndez\u2011March accusing ACT of pushing an enforcement model similar to the United States\u2019 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Seymour rejected the comparison. \u201cThe Greens have breathlessly claimed ACT wants to bring ICE to New Zealand. This says more about their obsession with American politics than it says about ACT\u2019s immigration policy,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is New Zealand. We can enforce New Zealand law, in a New Zealand way, without importing every argument from cable news in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seymour said elected governments had set the rules and that enforcing them was a matter of democratic integrity. \u201cIf Labour and the Greens don\u2019t like the rules, they should be honest and campaign to change them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The political clash sits within a wider national conversation about migration, belonging and responsibility. In Scripture, the call to \u201cwelcome the stranger\u201d appears alongside commands to uphold justice and maintain order within the community. The tension between hospitality and accountability is not new: biblical societies were instructed to care for foreigners while also ensuring that laws were applied consistently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As New Zealand debates overstayers, enforcement and compassion, the biblical lens highlights a familiar challenge \u2014 how to uphold the law while treating every person with dignity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Colin Ambler\/cvnznews.com ACT is sharpening its case for a dedicated overstayer enforcement unit, after senior Labour MP Phil Twyford told 1News he would not support creating a specialised team within Immigration New Zealand. ACT Leader David Seymour said Twyford\u2019s position ignored the scale of the problem. \u201cPhil Twyford says we don\u2019t need a dedicated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[41],"tags":[1096,391,113,257],"coauthors":[446],"class_list":{"0":"post-12637","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-act-party","9":"tag-immigration","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-politics"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/New-Zealands-migration-shift-\u2013-NZ-Stats.png.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12639,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12637\/revisions\/12639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12637"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=12637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}