We're not the only ones with immigration problems.
An embarrassed New Zealand government has ordered an urgent shake-up of its immigration system after it was revealed two former members of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime were staying in the country.
The move followed an opposition party leader telling the nation's parliament on Tuesday that a former Iraqi cabinet member of the 1980s had entered the country a month ago and was seeking refugee status.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said former Iraqi agriculture minister Amer Mahdi Alkashali, also known as Amer Mahdi Saleh Khashaly, arrived about a month ago.
The government later confirmed the man had entered New Zealand on an Iraqi passport and would be removed.
The news follows confirmation by the government on Monday that an unnamed former Iraqi diplomat of the Saddam era had been staying in the country on a visitor's visa.
Neither of the men are classified as a security risk.
Immigration Minister Paul Swain told a press conference he had lost confidence in New Zealand's immigration approval process for people from high-risk countries.
Swain said his department had "a good idea" where the former Iraqi minister was in New Zealand and action would soon be taken to deport him.
The visa of the other man, a former diplomat to Bangladesh and Cuba, had also been revoked.
Peters told parliament Alkashali was "a former minister for agriculture and agrarian reform in a Saddam Hussein government at the same time that hundreds of thousands of Kurds were losing their lives under a regime of genocide".
From the Sydney Morning Herald.
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