Analysis: Priyanca Radhakrishnan says Erica Stanford has typecast Indian migrants in a negative light. The Indian-origin Labour MP is describing the immigration minister’s comments as “careless at best and prejudiced at worst”.
So what happened? Over the last few weeks, Stanford has admitted to having not followed best practices after she was caught out using her personal gmail account for official correspondence. She says she has taken measures to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
On May 6, Stanford was responding to a question in Parliament on this misstep when she made a passing reference that Radhakrishnan is not too happy about.
“...I receive a lot of unsolicited emails like, for example, things from people in India asking for immigration advice, which I never respond to. I almost regard those as being akin to spam…,” she said.
Radhakrishnan says it’s unacceptable that the immigration minister singled out people from one ethnicity, and “wrote them all off” by claiming their emails aren’t worth responding to and akin to spam.
“Particularly given New Zealand’s important relationship with India,” she told The Indian Weekender later. “Comments like these serve to reinforce negative stereotypes against an entire community of people.”
Stanford suggests Radhakrishnan hasn’t quite comprehended the point she was trying to make – that she often receives correspondence on her personal email from people overseas seeking immigration advice.
“In this instance, I recalled a recent email I’d received of this nature when answering in Question Time. I did not say it is automatically considered as spam, I said ‘I almost regard those as being akin to spam’,” she says.
But isn’t that precisely what Radhakrishnan is saying? Ministers and MPs receive unsolicited mails all the time. What’s the need to pick out Indians? In her reply to The Indian Weekender’s query, Stanford didn’t make any mention of Indians.
Radhakrishnan’s critique relies on two core assumptions. First, the way Stanford made the reference to Indians does indeed typecast a particular ethnicity. The second one is more subtle. When the immigration minister herself engenders such stereotypes, it surely rubs off on officials making frontline immigration decisions.
Auckland-based lawyer Alastair McClymont, known for his deep expertise in cases involving disputes with Immigration New Zealand (INZ), points to the irony of the Labour Party taking an objection on these two counts.
“The Labour Party’s objections are a bit rich considering the great efforts that the Labour government went through during six years in government to make life as difficult as possible for Indian migrants,” he says.
Stanford is not the first minister to refer to Indians in this way, says McClymont, adding it’s a “long-standing tradition” for immigration ministers to “denigrate Indian migrants”.
“Minister Stanford’s glib comment about Indians seeking assistance reflects not only the fact that they are grossly undervalued, but reflects also the general disdain that both major political parties and INZ have for migrants from India.”
McClymont says immigration decisionmaking is often susceptible to implicit bias against Indians owing to a variety of reasons.
“It comes from a combination of ministerial statements, INZ head office operational planning, and branch operational bias…The media plays into the hands on anti-Indian bias.”