‘Racist’ raids: New Zealand to say sorry to Pacific Islanders

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to apologise over early morning immigration raids in 1970s that singled out people of Pacific Island descent.

Wellington, New Zealand – It has been 50 years since New Zealand’s “dawn raids” and the 82-year-old father of Pacific Peoples Minister Aupito William Sio still cannot talk about it. “How do you talk about something where you were made to feel helpless in your own home by an authority that was supposed to look after you and an authority you came to serve?” Sio said. The dawn raids took place in the 1970s, involving people from the Pacific Islands who had migrated to New Zealand to work in the years following World War II.