North and South Tarawa are seen from the air in the Pacific island nation of Kiribati. 23 May 2013. Photo: Reuters / David Gray
Amnesty International is asking the New Zealand government to create a new humanitarian visa for Pacific people impacted by climate change.
Kiribati community leader Charles Kiata said life on Kiribati is becoming extremely hard as sea levels rise and the region is hit by more severe storms, higher temperatures and drought.
"Every part of life, food, shelter, health, is being affected and what hurts the most is that our people feel trapped. They love their home, but their home is slowly disappearing," Kiata said.
Crops are dying and fresh drinking water is becoming increasingly scarce for the island nation.
Kiata said in New Zealand, overstayers are anxious they will be sent back home.
"Deporting them back to flooded lands or places with no clean water like Kiribati is not only cruel but it also goes against our shared Pacific values."
Amnesty International is also asking the government to stop deporting overstayers from Kiribati and Tuvalu, who would be returning to harsh conditions.
The organisation's executive director, Jacqui Dillon said she wants New Zealand to acknowledge its duty of care to Pacific communities.
"We are asking the New Zealand government to create a new humanitarian visa, specifically for those impacted by climate change and disasters. Enabling people to migrate on their terms with dignity."
She said current Pacific visas New Zealand offers, such as the Recognised Seasonal Employers (RSE) and the Pacific Access Category (PAC), are insufficient.
"Those pathways are in effect nothing short of a discriminatory lottery, so they don't offer dignity, nor do they offer self-agency."
Dillon said current visa schemes were also discriminatory because people could only migrate if they have an acceptable standard of health.
The organisation interviewed Alieta - not her real name - who has a visual impairment. She decided to remove her name from the family's PAC application to enable her husband and six-year-old daughter to migrate to New Zealand in 2016.
It's meant Alieta has only seen her daughter once in the past 11 years.
"I would urge all of us to think about that and say, if our feet were in those shoes, would we think that that was right? I don't think we would," Dillon said.
Tuvaluan community leader Fala Haulangi, based in Aotearoa, wants the country to adopt something like the Falepili Union Treaty which the leaders of Tuvalu and Australia signed in 2023.
It creates a pathway for up to 280 Tuvalu citizens to go to Australia each year to work, live, and study.
This year over 80 percent of the population applied to move under the treaty.
Haulangi said the PAC had too many restrictions.
"PAC (Pacific Access Category Visa) still comes with conditions that are very, very strict on my people, so if [New Zealand has] the same terms and conditions that Australia has for the Falepili Treaty, to me that is really good."
In the past, Pacific governments have been worried about the Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme causing a brain drain.
In 2023, Samoa paused the scheme, partially because of the loss of skilled labour, including police officers leaving to go fruit picking.
Haulangi said it's not up to her to tell people to stay if a new and more open visa is available to Pacific people.
"Who am I to tell my people back home 'don't come, stay there' because we need people back home."
Dillon said some people will stay.
"All we're simply saying is give people the opportunity and the dignity to have self-agency and be able to choose."
Charles Kiata from Kiribati said a visa established now would mean there would be a slow migration of people from the Pacific and not people being forced to leave as climate refugees.
He said people from Kiribati have strengths they can be proud of and can partner with New Zealand.
"It's a win-win for both of us; our people come to New Zealand to contribute economically and to society."
RNZ Pacific has approached New Zealand's Minister of Immigration Erica Stanford for comment.
