Tighten Citizenship Laws Further Says Peters

New Zealand First has called on the Government to seriously tighten immigration rules over residency as well as citizenship, and to review some of the refugee decisions over the past twenty years.

The Government is preparing to give itself the power to decline and even revoke New Zealand passports and citizenship for security reasons as part of the international "war on terror".

Rt Hon Winston Peters said today that despite repeated warnings over the past four years, the Government had done little to stem the flow of dubious characters coming to New Zealand from some of the world’s worst terrorist havens - and staying here.

“In one of these cases, an Algerian concocted a fiction about his life, which the Refugee Appeal Authority rejected, but this individual was finally granted residency because he sired a number of New Zealand children while his case was being heard.

“It is a regrettable fact that the Government and its immigration officials have actually no idea how many suspected terrorists they have let into the country but we sincerely hope they will start looking for them and deporting them.

“They could start with that well-publicised leech on New Zealand taxpayers, Ahmed Zaoui, who is now being portrayed as some kind of saint.

“If the Government is serious about protecting its citizens, Zaoui should be the first sent to where he came from,” said Mr Peters.

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