A former immigration minister claims officials carried out an illegal brothel raid and may have fabricated a deportation notice.
Tuariki Delamere. Photo: RNZ
Tuariki Delamere, who is now an immigration consultant, is writing to the current minister, Iain Lees-Galloway, about the case, which he says left his client with a tainted immigration history.
The woman, from China, was found during a 2014 brothel raid in Auckland.
She went on to make an appeal against the refusal to renew her work visa and about a failed partnership application, claiming the illegal brothel raid had affected her applications.
Her immigration adviser, Mr Delamere, suspects a deportation order dated three days before the raid but which only appeared a year after it, was fabricated to justify an illegal raid.
He said he has video footage of the raid and that without a warrant or deportation liability notice it was simply breaking and entering.
Mr Delamere wants an investigation into whether the notice was valid because if it was created before the raid he says Immigration New Zealand had no grounds at that time to deport the woman.
If it was made after the raid to justify illegal actions that could lead to criminal charges, he said.
"It was illegal because they didn't have a search warrant and they didn't have a deportation order.
"And then a year later Immigration New Zealand fronted up with what we call a deportation liability notice dated three days before the raid, which is pretty clever that they could see into the future.
"But more importantly that was never part of the records that I obtained and the suggestion is it was created after the raid and if it was that's a very serious criminal offence, manufacturing evidence.
"The worst case scenario, most likely scenario, is an immigration officer manufactured it after the event and that's manufacturing evidence to support an illegal action and that's pretty serious."
Immigration New Zealand (INZ) in rejecting the woman's visa applications said it was not satisfied she was a bona fide applicant because she had admitted to working as a prostitute in an interview which Mr Delamere said was unlawfully obtained.
She initially failed to disclose her new relationship to immigration officials, fearing they would tell her partner about her three weeks as a prostitute, she said.
She complained about the raid to the Ombudsman, the police, and the Independent Police Complaints Authority.
The immigration and protection tribunal rejected her appeals, saying the challenge to the legality of the raid did not amount to exceptional humanitarian circumstances.
An INZ manager, Jock Gilroy, said the woman was deported in August 2017.
"The visit in question occurred in 2014," he said. "INZ is aware of Mr Delamere's claims which have been thoroughly investigated by the integrity unit of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment."
A spokesperson for immigration minister Iain Lees-Galloway said he would not usually comment before an investigation is carried out, if one was to be ordered.