Geektastic:

 

Dratsab:

 

frankv: Did NZ pay for her return flight? I didn't see that information in the article. I believe that deportees are asked to pay for their deportation flights. 

 

Kiwifruta: Okay, didn't know that about the deportee paying for their own flight out of the country. 

 

kharris: Normally the person would be billed for the cost of deportation. However I imagine that much of this is never recovered. I doubt you are ever allowed back if you don't pay. 

 

This used to be the case but in 2004 an immigration official was charged with a number of offences after fraudulently collecting such monies. He even kept/on-sold a few cars.

 

Part of the fallout from this has been that Immigration no longer seek costs. So in the case being discussed here, as in in every deportation/border refusal case since 2004, the flights back to France would have been paid for by the NZ tax payer. I say France because New Zealand and Australia share border information and have reciprocal border actions. Once the young lady had been refused entry here, it's highly likely her Australian work visa would have been cancelled. Transport costs arising from such secondary actions are picked up by the primary country.

 

 

 

Disclaimer: Working where I do at the airport, this is a case of deja poo for me.

 

 

 

 

You really do have to wonder (if what you say is correct and I am not saying it isn't or it is) exactly what was actually achieved by this.

 

 

1. We have a young French national who will grow up thinking foreigners are unwelcome in NZ and may thus never bring her family here to spend money
2. We have created a negative brand ambassador for NZ, who will tell friends, teachers, family, parents, parent's friends etc how poorly she was treated and THOSE people may never come here now, plus all the ones they speak to
3. We've made ourselves look just a bit silly when this is picked up in the press overseas (as I am sure it will be)
4. We've landed the taxpayers with a bill they did not need and that served no practical purpose at all
5. We've destroyed the domestic arrangements of a hard working Australian family who now think NZ is a fairly silly place I am sure and who may not return, will tell lots of people and so on

 

All in all, not Immigration NZ's finest hour I would suggest.

 

Even more foolish is the fact that if the young lady had arrived on a different flight from the family she was living with and simply breezed through saying she was on holiday then they probably would not have even noticed her....

 

I don't really imagine this would make big news overseas, even in France. Countries send people away at the border all the time.