Plain language law

New Zealand law explained for everyone

Plain Language Law homepage
277B: Department must review and report on entry and search powers under section 277A
or “Department to review immigration officers' entry and search powers and report findings”

You could also call this:

“Annual report lists uses of immigration search powers and resulting charges”

The chief executive must write a report every year. In this report, they need to include two important pieces of information:

  1. How many times immigration officers used their powers to enter and search places during that year. These powers are described in section 277A(3)(a) or (b).

  2. How many people were charged with breaking the law under section 350 or 351 during that year. But they only need to count the cases where the evidence to charge these people was greatly helped by using the powers mentioned in section 277A(3)(a) or (b).

It’s important to know that the chief executive doesn’t need to include information about times when people let immigration officers enter or search willingly. This means if someone says “yes, you can come in and look around,” the chief executive doesn’t have to put that in the report.

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 It might be out of date or be missing some parts.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


Next up: 278: Powers of entry and inspection relating to records of education providers

or “Immigration officers can check education providers' records to ensure visa compliance”

Part 8 Compliance and information
Powers of entry, inspection, etc

277CDepartmental annual report to record exercise of entry and search powers under section 277A

  1. The chief executive must include in every annual report prepared by the chief executive for the purposes of section 43 of the Public Finance Act 1989—

  2. the number of occasions during the period covered by the report on which immigration officers exercised the powers conferred by section 277A(3)(a) or (b), or both; and
    1. the number of persons charged during the period covered by the report with an offence under section 350 or 351, if the collection of evidence relevant to the offence was significantly assisted by the exercise of the powers under section 277A(3)(a) or (b), or both.
      1. To avoid doubt, this section does not require the chief executive to include in any annual report information about an entry or a search undertaken by consent.

      Notes
      • Section 277C: inserted, on , by section 66 of the Immigration Amendment Act 2015 (2015 No 48).