US diplomats have yet to raise
the matter of migration with New Zealand’s Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) after being directed to do
so by the Trump administration.
A New York Times
report
on Wednesday said US embassies in Europe, Canada, Australia
and New Zealand had been instructed to pressure their
governments to heavily restrict migration.
Ambassadors
and their staff were advised to “regularly engage host
governments and their respective authorities to raise US
concerns about violent crimes associated with people of a
migration background”, according to the Times.
In a
statement to RNZ, an MFATspokesperson said: “There has been
no such engagement.”
1News also reported
comments from an unnamed US State Department official
expressing concern that liberal democracies were signing up
to “the globalised migration narrative”.
“The idea
that you can just import large amounts of people from a
different culture – a radically different culture even – and
assume that everything will be fine and hunky dory when case
studies have shown that that isn’t the case,” the official
told 1News.
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“It’s a risk that we see
potentially affecting New Zealand as time goes
on.”
Speaking earlier this week, Prime Minister
Christopher Luxon said New Zealand’s immigration policy
would be decided by New Zealanders.
“New Zealand has
an outstanding immigration system,” he said. “We have good
control of our borders. We don’t have problems like I
observe in other countries around the world with illegal
immigration.”
Luxon told reporters he was very proud
of New Zealand’s policy and the many immigrants who had made
New Zealand home.
“They’ve made New Zealand a much
better
place.”
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