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Immigration Act 2009

Compliance and information - Powers generally

293A: Warrant to enter and search

You could also call this:

“Immigration officers can get permission to search places for evidence of immigration-related crimes”

If you’re an immigration officer, you can ask for a search warrant to look through any place or thing. You need to ask for this warrant from a special person called an issuing officer.

The issuing officer can give you a search warrant if they think there are good reasons to believe that:

  1. A crime related to immigration has happened, is happening, or will happen, and
  2. The search will find evidence about this crime in the place or thing you want to search.

A crime related to immigration can be:

  • Breaking rules in the current immigration law or the old one
  • Breaking rules in other laws that are directly about immigration

When you use the search warrant, you need to follow the rules in Part 4 of the Search and Surveillance Act 2012. But some parts of that Act (sections 118 and 119) only apply if a police officer is doing the search.

This text is automatically generated. It might be out of date or be missing some parts. Find out more about how we do this.

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM4844000.

Topics:
Immigration and citizenship > Visas
Immigration and citizenship > Border control
Crime and justice > Criminal law
Crime and justice > Police and safety
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“Police officers can act as immigration officers in certain situations”

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Part 8 Compliance and information
Powers generally

293AWarrant to enter and search

  1. An immigration officer may apply for a search warrant to search any place or thing.

  2. The application must be made, in the manner provided in subpart 3 of Part 4 of the Search and Surveillance Act 2012, to an issuing officer (within the meaning of section 3(1) of that Act).

  3. An issuing officer may issue a search warrant to an immigration officer if the issuing officer is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds—

  4. to suspect that any relevant offence specified in the application has been committed, is being committed, or will be committed; and
    1. to believe that the search will find evidential material in respect of the offence in or on the place or thing specified in the application.

      1. In this section, relevant offence means an offence against—

      2. this Act or any regulations made under it; or
        1. the former Act or any regulations made under it; or
          1. any other enactment, if the offence relates directly to matters concerning immigration.

            1. The provisions of Part 4 of the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 apply, except that sections 118 and 119 apply only if the warrant is executed (as provided for in section 293 of this Act) by a constable.

            Notes
            • Section 293A: replaced, on , by section 75 of the Immigration Amendment Act 2015 (2015 No 48).