If you’re afraid to go back to your own country, you can ask New Zealand to recognize you as a refugee. Immigration New Zealand has to recognize your refugee status if you meet the definition of “refugee” in the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. In broad terms, this is someone who can’t go back to their country of origin because if they do they’ll be harmed or ill-treated because of their race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinion.

Sometimes people who need protection fall outside that “refugee” definition – for example, if those factors of race, religion and so on don’t exactly apply to them. New Zealand law therefore also recognizes the additional category of “protected person”, which appears in the UN Convention against Torture and the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. However, requests in New Zealand for recognition of “protected person” status aren’t common.

In this section, we explain who qualifies for refugee and protected status, how to claim that status, and what you can do if Immigration New Zealand rejects your claim.

People who’ve already been recognized as refugees by the UN High Commission for Refugees may be able to resettle in New Zealand under the UNHCR Refugee Quota scheme.

The refugee claims scheme in the Immigration Act (including the “protected person” scheme) is separate from the Act’s main immigration visa scheme. This is shown in a number of different ways:

• You can claim refugee status if you’re in New Zealand, regardless of whether you’re here legally or illegally.
• Once you’ve claimed refugee status, you usually can’t be deported while you’re waiting for your claim to be decided.
• If you’re in New Zealand on a Temporary Visa and you make an unsuccessful claim for refugee status, you’ll then be barred from applying for a further visa of any kind, so long as you remain in New Zealand.
• Legal aid is available for refugee status issues, unlike other immigration issues.
• Decisions about refugees are made by Refugee and Protection Officers in Immigration New Zealand’s separate Refugee Status Branch. Refugee and Protection Officers only deal with refugee claims, not visa issues; in the same way, Immigration Officers can only make decisions about visa issues, not refugee issues.