Minister for Immigration Erica Stanford says Cabinet would consider the International Court of Justice’s ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory if it plans to set up a humanitarian visa for family members stuck in Gaza.

Stanford confirmed to Newsroom she is receiving weekly briefings on the situations of individual families from officials who meet with those families, although she has not met with the Palestinian community herself, much to their chagrin.

Documents released to Newsroom under the Official Information Act show Stanford has been requesting updates on what New Zealand’s partner countries have been doing to set up similar visa pathways since December last year. But to date, no visa category has been created in New Zealand, although partners Australia and Canada have implemented their schemes.

Last Thursday, Muhammad Dahlan, a member of New Zealand’s Palestinian community, presented a petition to the Government for the creation of a humanitarian visa pathway: a scheme the country rolled out for family members stuck in Ukraine in a matter of weeks. It has been eight months since Dahlan started collecting signatures.

On Wednesday in the House, Green Party co-leader Chl?e Swarbrick tabled a letter to the Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs signed by 80 academics, NGOs and religious organisations. It outlined five demands, one of which was the creation of this visa scheme. Stanford was not the target of the letter and later told Newsroom the buck didn’t stop with her because ※this is, in the end, a cabinet decision§.

Dahlan and his community would still like a meeting with Stanford, who has previously described this visa pathway as ※false hope§ for those stuck in Gaza. But some Palestinians have been able to leave, and have been doing so since the current conflict began on October 7, 2023.?

According to documents released under the Official Information Act, on April 18 a memoir to Stanford told her she ※may wish to meet with members of the Palestinian community§ - but she has yet to do so. Internal communications show she has been aware of the community’s requests and has been seeking further information on the developing crisis since she took the role.?

Katrina Mitchell-Kouttab, another member of the Palestinian community in New Zealand, supported Muhammad in his presentation. She said Stanford’s no-guarantees excuse was ※quite heartless§, and called on the Government to ※please give us the same equal humanity§ as Ukrainians. She called on Stanford to at least meet the Palestinian community.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, said Mitchell-Kouttab, ※[Stanford] said that families must be absolutely desperate to get their families out, and we will do everything we can to help them. We’re the same.§ The different treatments were ※quite disrespectful to us as a community§, said Mitchell-Kouttab.

In the wake of that invasion, Stanford was highly critical of a delay in creating a humanitarian visa scheme. During Question Time on March 8, 2022, she asked the then Minister of Immigration Kris Faafoi why the Government was forcing desperate war zone evacuees to apply for an ※unfit-for-purpose existing visa§ instead of creating a ※simple, easy-to-use humanitarian visa for wider family members§.

Stanford asked why it was that ※other countries around the world are able to instigate humanitarian visas urgently to get desperate Ukrainian family members out§ while New Zealand’s Minister of Immigration was ※sitting on his hands§.

Stanford has replaced Faafoi and now faces nearly identical critiques from Dahlan and Mitchell-Kouttab, whose presentation focused on the current visa pathway being overly restrictive, confusing, inaccessible, and out-of-step with international proceedings. They made a point of mentioning her ardent calls for these visas in the past and hoped the same passion would be evident in a meeting with their community.?

When asked on Wednesday if she had any plans to meet the community, Stanford told Newsroom she had ※asked Immigration New Zealand to do that§ and noted she received weekly updates from officials after their meetings with the families involved.?

※We’ve been told that she’s very busy and that she’ll get around to looking at our request,§ said Mitchell-Kouttab. Representatives from the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment have met with these families, and have said they will continue to do so.

A memoir to Stanford in December last year highlighted a key message from the Global Refugee Forum the week prior: ※It must be ensured that international humanitarian law remains the way of regulating the war.§?

Just before Dahlan’s presentation, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory was illegal. It was a landmark ruling, one Stanford said ※will feed into our decision making, and if we need to take that to Cabinet I’ll take that to Cabinet§.?

Following the ruling, Labour party leader Chris Hipkins said international law had a critical role to play in resolving this conflict, and that the coalition Government had been ※strangely muted when it comes to Israel’s violations§.

Mitchell-Kouttab explained how every second the Government waited puts more lives in danger. She described a family in Christchurch - with blood relation to four children aged 7-11 - who are still in Gaza: ※They have had their grandmother killed. After their grandmother was killed, their father was killed. After their father was killed, their mother was killed. These four children are on their own, completely, with family here, desperate to bring them over.§

Mitchell-Kouttab’s own relative was sheltered in a church when his appendix ruptured. He weighed up the tanks outside with his internal injury, and died inside the church. Before that, she testified, her family had been surrounded by tanks and shot.?

In the past, though her coalition partner David Seymour has said Gaza is not ※actual genocide§, Stanford has expressed sympathy for those trapped in the territory. She has maintained the reasons for a lack of specialist visas hinge on the inability to leave the area. The southern crossing from Rafah is monopolised by a private company whose prices have ballooned since October, but escape remains possible, though exceptionally difficult.?

The Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment acknowledged this in a February email to Stanford, which said there were ※currently practically insurmountable barriers and immense risks to Palestinians leaving the region§. It was under these circumstances that Stanford said she did not want to offer ※false hope§ to anyone who may receive a visa.

But now, Dahlan said, ※the ability to leave Gaza is not a reason to refuse the visas. We know that we have families now in Egypt. They left Gaza with different means.§ His sister is in Australia living with in-laws, because they managed to get her and her entire family out with the support of the Australian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His aunt is in Canada under the visa scheme they established, and his cousin is in Beijing with his employer.?

Dahlan and Mitchell-Kouttab explained that having a visa scheme in place may not always help someone stuck behind the checkpoint, but it would offer a route to safety for anyone who has already made it through, and would be helpful to have in place should the situation change and a mass of Palestinians were suddenly able to make the crossing.

In May, Canada increased its specialist visa cap from 1000 to 5000, despite having no ability to spirit potential migrants to safety. Dahlan summarised the Canadian Minister of Immigration’s view as ※having the visa program up and running means [we] will be ready to have more people as the situation evolves§, and said the Canadian response was ※a deep contrast to New Zealand’s response; it is pragmatic and humane§.

Documents show Stanford requested information on specialist visa pathways as early as December, weeks into her role as Minister of Immigration. Then, on January 18, she requested a further update on ※moves our partners have made around visas for Palestinians§.?

These partners are Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, collectively called the ※M5§ countries, short for ※Migration 5§. M5 is an intelligence framework in which these countries share confidential information about who crosses their borders.?

Philippa Yasbek, a member of Alternative Jewish Voices and supporter of the Palestinian community, said Israel had been ※protected for so long§ by the Americans, who have ※a huge part to play in this§. Politicians on both sides of the American divide have denounced pro-Palestinian protestors, and the country has not created a specialist visa pathway.

Dahlan presented his petition just hours after the US hosted Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, who received multiple standing ovations. The US is Israel’s closest ally, and it wields significant influence in M5.?

But America’s coziness with the Israelis has not stopped Australia and Canada from creating specialist pathways for Palestinians. Whatever the reason for New Zealand’s reticence, it will be found onshore.

Australia and Canada’s pathways are specialised, while New Zealand continues to rely on a standard visitor visa pathway - albeit with a dedicated priority to anyone applying from Gaza. A visitor visa comes with an application fee and requires personal documentation, which Dahlan said was often impossible to provide because of the total destruction of most of the strip.

※Prioritising visas for the Palestinians is pointless if the visa settings remain the same,§ said Dahlan. ※People have lost their history. It’s not just their lives, it’s everything: their stories, their dreams.§

Stanford was told in April by MBIE: ※Previously, given the concern about the ability for individuals in a conflict zone to meet bona fide requirements, individuals were exempt from bona fide requirements under a special visa created in response to Ukraine.§

Officials warned of the precedent this move would set: ※New Zealand did not provide a special visa for Sudan, for example.§ Sudan has been embroiled in a violent civil war since April last year, which broke out during Ramadan. New Zealand did not provide specialist visas following humanitarian crises in Syria or Myanmar, either, as noted by MBIE.

MBIE’s acting Deputy Secretary of Immigration, Catriona Robinson, provided an update after Dahlan’s submission. ※As of the 23rd of July, we’ve had 141 visa applications from Palestinian nationals, not all of whom were in Gaza when they made their application. Of these, 79 have been approved. 27 have been declined. The remainder are either still going through processing or have been withdrawn, and 23 have arrived on shore,§ she said.?

Jivan Grewel, MBIE’s General Manager of Employment Skills and Immigration Policy, presented alongside Robinson. Committee member Green MP Ricardo Men谷ndez March asked him about the risks outlined in MBIE’s submission, one of which he read back to Grewel: ※A lack of incentive for people to return home, even if the situation changes.§?

Men谷ndez March asked Grewel if he could seriously look Palestinians in the face and tell them one of the reasons they might not be granted a visa was because they might not want to go ※back home [to] a genocide§.

In response, Grewel said ※what we were pointing out in the submission is that there is a risk that some of that temporary migration turns into long-term§. Men谷ndez March then asked about how many people could even take advantage of such a visa, but this question was lost in further discussion.?

According to a February email from MBIE to Stanford, the ministry was considering three options for visa eligibility, tabled below, with a maximum of just over 3500.?

1. Immediate family (x1.5 of Palestinian visa holders in New Zealand): 1063?
2. Extended family (x2.5 of Palestinian visa holders in New Zealand): 1772?
3. Average Palestine household size (x5 of Palestinian visa holders in New Zealand): 3545?

In their communications with Stanford, officials were more concerned about the logistics of getting migrants out of Gaza and their ability to meet bona fide visa requirements than sum totals. The Ukrainian pathway was designed to allow at least 4000 to come to New Zealand, and at no point in the communications between Stanford and the ministry did the quantity of potential Palestinian migrants take on the role of chief concern.?

But either way - whatever that total may be - as the crisis prolongs and the death toll rises, the number of prospective migrants will only continue to drop.?

※It’s hell on Earth＃ It’s the fastest decline in any human population in our history,§ said Mitchell-Kouttab.