‘‘I still call Australia home’: The deportation of convicted New Zealanders from Australia under Section 501 of the Migration Act’

New Zealanders have become the largest nationality group of deportees from Australia following amendments made to Section 501 (s501) of the Migration Act -visa cancellation or refusal on character grounds - in December 2014. In seeking to understand this phenomenon, Powell’s investigation pushes the limits of Stumpf’s crimmigration approach (2006) – the merging of criminal and immigration law as a means to exclude non-citizens (via deportation) that has been applied to the Australian criminal deportation context.  She includes conceptual, policy and empirical findings related to how and why convicted non-citizens are constructed as a risk to the Australian community in policy and practice, and how the risk based approach interplays with mitigating factors associated with New Zealander long term residents’ established lives in Australia. This is the first comprehensive study of its kind on s501 visa cancellation and deportation that traverses the Tasman and spans across three areas of investigation: the escalation of crimmigration in visa cancellation and criminal deportation legislation and policy, the way Administrative Appeal Tribunal s501 decisions are made, and the impacts of s501 deportation on New Zealanders and family members of deported New Zealanders. It therefore provides insights into the s501 deportation system from the perspectives of government (as reflected in policy change), decision makers at the AAT and individuals impacted by s501 deportation.