Pope Francis addresses this question in his statement for next year's World Day of Migrants and Refugees

In this statement, which was released this week, Francis says receiving nations need to do more need to do more to "integrate migrants and refugees in the communities that welcome them."

However, the Pope made it clear that "integration does not mean the newcomers will be asked to give up their cultural identity."

He says migrants and refugees must have "opportunities to share their cultures and to discover the cultural heritage of their new communities."

The Stuff/Massey survey revealed that only 14 per cent of survey respondents thought immigrants should bring their way of life to New Zealand.

The majority of people thought migrants needed to "learn to do things the Kiwi way"

53 per cent - of people agreed migrants should learn how things were done in New Zealand while 33 per cent didn't mind what they did - as long as it was legal.

55 per cent of people thought the immigration rate was too high, 40 per cent thought it was about right and only 5 per cent thought we needed more.

More than half - 72 per cent of people wanted stricter control of foreign ownership and 20 per cent thought our land should be for Kiwis only. Only 8 per cent welcomed more foreign investment.

39,644 voters responded to the reader-initiated online survey which was conducted in May.

It wasn't designed to represent the population. It was not scientific and people chose to take part - or not.

But the number who did participate represent more than 1 per cent of voters.

Where do the Parties stand on immigration?

• NewHub: Who should I vote for? Immigration policies at a glance
• New Zealand Herald: Where do the parties stand on immigration

Source

• Independent
• CNS
• Stuff
• Zenit
• Image: How to Sell NZ

There were cockroaches crawling and biting me, I thought to myself this is similar to a police station in Afghanistan!"

It's just after midnight at Auckland International Airport when Khalid, who we agreed not to name to protect his identity, arrived in late August 2012.

He'd disposed of his passport during the final transit before reaching Auckland. Continue reading

Would we be able to resettle them well? Of course we could.

We've done it before, 35 years ago when the 'bogey' of the refugee hordes was just as much paraded as it is being today. John Key was a teenager then. Immigration minister Aussie Malcolm was the voice of the government on refugees.

The 'have we got room for more refugees' discussion of 2015 is almost a carbon copy of what we were arguing back in 1979.

The mainly Vietnamese boat people of that time and land refugees from Pol Pot's Cambodia and from Laos were crowded into camps in various parts of South East Asia particularly, Thailand. More than a million people left those three countries in the years 1975 to 1979.

And how many were let through the door here?

There were calls then, as now, for New Zealand to take in more than the small number accepted up to that time.

There were fears put about of boatloads of refugees washing up on our shores, taking up our space, using our housing, getting a free ride here when others could not. There was the suggestion that if we increased our quota we couldn't do a good job resettling them.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was desperate then for host countries to help with refugee resettlement.

In response, in New Zealand, the numbers allowed in were small. In that time of horrific and total loss for the people concerned around 530 were let in - but only if they held formal UN refugee status and had occupation qualifications useful to New Zealand.

There were calls for New Zealand to show leadership by increasing our intake. The government said no. Not until it saw how the first groups had settled. (Given that desperation-settlement can take years it was going to be a long wait if it was properly going to be assessed.)

And now it's happening again. Continue reading

• Hugo Manson can be heard interviewing locals on Radio Eketahuna along with interesting people from all over the world.