That's a good question. I am [Technical difficulty—Editor].
Prior to COVID, we were deporting quite a few people. Obviously, when COVID came, the ability to deport people was compromised. We are just now returning to previous levels.
In terms of how we achieved those additional numbers, we took more of a case management approach to our lower-priority deportations. Our priority deportations—criminals—are always there, and picking them up from prison is actually quite an easy thing to do. It's very straightforward. However, with regard to the people who are in the community, we've spent a lot of time actively working with them so that they go home under their own steam. The main increase was in what we would call “voluntary departures” or “self-deportations”. We would visit these people weekly and kind of convince them that it was the wrong thing to do to stay in New Zealand. We would convince them to return home. Unfortunately, we're not allowed to offer them any incentive to do that, but we can disincentivize them from remaining. If they're on our radar, they can't work. They can't even work illegally, because we will be keeping an eye on them.
There are two things that work in that space. One is that you allow people who are not criminals or who are not serious criminals the ability to control their own destiny. Sometimes that is an empowering thing for people, and they will realize the error of their ways and just simply go home. It also means that it's a cost-saving for the government because sometimes their family...and often they'll have offshore remittances once they've made up their mind to return home.
There is a third incentive that we can offer them, which is that, if they do return home voluntarily without being deported or through a co-operative action, after a period of time they can then have the opportunity to return to New Zealand, and that's never off the table. So, it's a case management approach for our less serious overstayers.