Invercargill has been selected as a new refugee settlement location.

Immigration New Zealand General Manager Steve McGill says an extra settlement location is needed because of the recent ongoing increase to the quota and the decreasing proportion of refugee families settled in Auckland, meaning that only those quota refugees who have relatives already living in the region are settled there.

He says details are still being worked out, but it is expected that the first group of refugees will arrive in Invercargill later this year.

At present there are six locations where quota refugees are settled after they have completed the six-week reception programme at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre: Auckland region, Waikato, Manawatu, Wellington region, Nelson and Dunedin.

The decision to add Invercargill was made by the New Zealand Refugee Resettlement Strategy Senior Officials’ Group which made up of representatives from Immigration New Zealand, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Social Development, Office of Ethnic Communities and Department of Internal Affairs.

• Read the full Immigration NZ media release at the Scoop website.