New Zealand Apologizes for Dawn Raids on Migrants in 1970s

SYDNEY - New Zealand has formally apologized to the Pacific community which felt “terrorized" during police raids searching for visa overstayers in the 1970s. The so-called Dawn Raids, carried out between 1974 and 1976, targeted only people from the Pacific Islands even though statistics showed the vast majority of overstayers were from Europe and the United States.   New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the immigration raids were “dehumanizing.”  Speaking at Auckland Town Hall, she expressed her government’s “sorrow and remorse.”  She acknowledged the “distress and hurt the raids” had caused.   

Many Pacific Islanders moved to New Zealand after World War II to boost a work force ravaged by conflict overseas.  By 1976, they made up just over 2% of the population, or about 65,000 people, according to the national census.    As the economy faltered, though, Samoans, Tongans and other Pacific Islanders who had arrived as desperately needed migrant workers were suddenly accused of taking jobs away from New Zealanders.      That prompted a crackdown by the police on those suspected of overstaying their visas.  Churches, schools and workplaces were routinely raided, as were homes -- often in the middle of the night.