On Sunday, the Catholic bishops of New Zealand want Catholic communities to reflect on the plight of these migrant workers.

21 June, is the annual Day of Prayer for Refugees and Migrants and the theme of this day is Where is your brother or sister?

With the COVID-19 pandemic affecting the economy worldwide, in New Zealand, the government has been quick to offer emergency benefits to New Zealanders, the bishops note.

But the bishops say one big chunk of the workforce is missing out; migrant workers.

Pope Francis says: "We must not look away but take special care to see and hear our migrant brothers and sisters who are experiencing exploitation."

They point out that even before the pandemic, migrant worker exploitation had been a serious problem that even the New Zealand Government has acknowledged by holding a review.

This week the government announced a three-month time-limited assistance programme will provide essentials like food, housing, petrol to get to a new job or the airport and over-the-counter medication but doesn't include cash payments.

It comes with a warning from Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters: "If you can't get back on your feet, you should leave New Zealand "as soon as possible".

But the mayor of Queenstown, Jim Boult says it is a mistake to think the term migrant workers refers to people here for a short period of time.

"We have folk who have been here on essential skills visas sometimes up to 10 years."

"They've been a hardworking part of our community. They've paid their taxes. They've helped build the tourism industry to what it was."

"They're active in local groups in their communities."

"It's not just as simple as saying to them 'well, you need to go home'."

Mangere East Family Services CEO Peter Sykes said the announcement was "nice", but a lot of economic damage had already been done to families from the lack of assistance early on in the crisis.

"This is what you throw beggars on the street," he said.

"A lot of migrants won't even pick it [the assistance] up. It's too much paperwork and it's not actually what they need. What they need to know is that they've got a roof over their head and they're treated with some respect.

Click here for resources Caritas resources for Day of Prayer for Refugees and Migrants

Source

• caritas.org.nz
• rnz.co.nz
• vaticannews.va
• newsroom.co.nz
• newsroom.co.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: indianweekender.co.nz

For decades New Zealand has been a willing participant in wars and interventions in the Middle East, which have been central in causing the current refugee crisis.

Why, then, does this country continue to refuse to play a tiny part in responding to the crisis we helped create?

Rather than thinking of the refugee crisis as one which this country needs to be charitable about, New Zealand actually needs to take refugees in order to make amends for its own actions.

The best explanation for why we should be taking thousands of refugees at the moment, is put by Alan Gamlen, a lecturer in human geography at Victoria University in his opinion piece, Why NZ should raise the refugee quota.

Here's his crucial point: "New Zealand should act because it has helped create a world in which there are more refugees than ever before.

"Our involvement in Western military interventions in North Africa and the Middle East stretch much further back than the invasion of Iraq, right back into the era of the British Empire, whose post-World War One officials drew the arbitrary borders that ISIS is now fighting to erase.

"We are part of the problem and we have a moral duty to help to fix it".

Veteran leftwing activist Mike Treen argues something similar in a very thoughtful blog post, Peoples Power starts to assert our basic humanity in refugee crisis.

He also points out that "The latest surge of human debris across the globe is a direct consequence of Western intervention in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan are the most recent to have been bombed into failed states".

On the political right, Peter Cresswell seems to agree: "The basic fact is that many of the world's new refugees come from war zones in which we bear some responsibility". Continue reading

• Bryce Edwards is a lecturer in Politics at the University of Otago.

One of the very few people to publicly oppose an increase in New Zealand's refugee quota is broadcaster Mike Hosking.

In one episode of Mike's Minute Hosking has admitted our quota is small, but says we cannot increase it because there is no firm figure that can be justified. Instead of asking where we could start, he asked "where would you stop?"

For more than two years I've been making the case for New Zealand doubling our refugee resettlement quota.

I'd like to walk Hosking through the numbers, in the hope that his inability to justify a figure was more a result of his prodigious workload rather than antipathy towards those in desperate need.

The numbers are quite simple: our population has grown 40 per cent since 1987, yet our quota has actually dropped 50 places since then.

Even ACT agrees that the quota should keep pace with our population. This would increase our quota to 1120 places.

But on top of the quota we also take 300 people through family reunification and about 120 people as asylum seekers (once appeals have been counted).

Fifteen years ago we averaged 500 accepted asylum seekers per year. The significant decrease since then was due to aggressive pre-screening of people before they could get to New Zealand to claim asylum.

Since we've closed that window, we should open a door: 380 more places in the quota to make up for the number we used to take.

Add this to the population increase and the quota should be 1500 places.

We would be doubling the quota in nominal terms, but in real terms we'd be doing only what we've done in the past. The average Kiwi will not notice, but the 750 extra people - roughly 200 families - certainly will. Continue reading

• Murdoch Stephens is the spokesperson and lead researcher for Doing Our Bit - Double New Zealand's Refugee Quota. The article above is from The Dominion Post.