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New Zealand Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse left for Malaysia Tuesday to oversee the selection of refugees for resettlement to New Zealand and to speak with United Nations refugee agency officials.
Woodhouse said he would join a mission from the government's Immigration New Zealand (INZ) agency in Kuala Lumpur to interview refugee cases who had been submitted for resettlement by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
"In addition to the UNHCR's own screening process, all refugee cases submitted for consideration undergo robust assessments as part of INZ's decision-making process," Woodhouse said.
"Selection mission interviews focus on credibility, risk and settlement to ensure that the person is not a security risk or character of concern to New Zealand, and that settlement in New Zealand is the right option for them," he said.
"This work is an integral part of ensuring that those refugees who are resettled in New Zealand do not pose a risk to the country and that they are well prepared to settle in the communities."
Woodhouse would also meet with UNHCR staff in Kuala Lumpur, as well as visit centers that provide education and health support to refugees.
In June last year, the New Zealand government raised its much criticized refugee quota from 750 to 1,000 a year.
The rise, to take effect from 2018, was "appropriate" and demonstrated the government's commitment to meet the needs of some of the world's most vulnerable people, Woodhouse said at the time.
The government came under international pressure to double its quota at the height of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015, but insisted on sticking to its three-decade-old annual quota of 750 refugees, before it yielded and agreed to take extra Syrian refugees.
(APD)
