A Cook Islands-born Australian criminal will be deported to New Zealand, despite never having set foot in the country.
He is the latest in a slew of people with little or no connection to New Zealand who will be forced to live here under an Australian law which gives its Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton, powers to revoke visas "on character grounds".
Since the beginning of 2015, more than 1600 people have been deported from Australia. Many have never lived here and some were deported for their associations to gangs, rather than any criminal convictions.
For Wichman Uriaere, 26, it was being sentenced to prison for 12 months or more that got him kicked out of the country he calls home.
"He's a naughty boy, but he's our naughty boy," Wichman's lawyer Susan Phillips told Stuff.
"He grew up here. We can't just expel him to some country he's never been to," she said.
He had been sentenced for aggravated burglary, "amongst other things" and, because he was born in the Cook Islands, automatically received New Zealand citizenship.
Uriaere tried, and failed, to have the ruling reversed, due to his "undeniably lengthy criminal record".
He moved to Australia at the age of 4 and never became a citizen. His offending began in 2008, aged 16. Most were minor, while others led to prison sentences.
A key cause of his crimes was "chronic substance abuse", said Justice Michael Wigney, who ruled on the case in the Federal Court of Australia.
He opened his reasons for judgment by noting that Uriaere's was "a sad case".
"Unfortunately, Mr Uriaere's story is an all too familiar one," Wigney said. "Even more unfortunate is the ultimate futility of his application to this Court."
Because of the long prison sentence, Uriaere's visa cancellation was mandatory. That stemmed from "a particularly harsh and uncompromising provision" which came into effect in January 2015, Wigney said.
Uriaere had completed an intensive drug and alcohol programme, and had been clean for nearly two years.
He was a positive role model on his younger siblings and, if he was removed, "the three minor children would suffer and probably for a long time continue to suffer real pain". These factors were not enough to keep him in the country.
In January last year, Dutton set aside the report about the impact of Uriaere's departure from Australia and cancelled his visa.
In his decision, he said it was of national interest to cancel Uriaere's visa because of the seriousness and nature of his criminal history. Were he to reoffend, there would be serious risk to the Australian community, Dutton said.
It was then when Uriaere lodged his now-unsuccessful appeal to the federal court. That failed, and he has until February 4 to lodge another appeal.
Uriaere's lawyer, Susan Phillips, said she was seeking leave to appeal with the decision.
"He has never been to New Zealand. He is a really lovely young man who obviously did some foolish things."
She said the Australian Government's investment in Uriaere's drug and alcohol rehabilitation he successfully completed in prison would go to waste.
He was more likely to reoffend and go back to drugs if he was left in New Zealand with no support networks, she said.
Phillips would rely on a recent decision by the Federal Court in the next appeal. The courts allowed Justin Hands, a Kiwi whose visa was cancelled after he spent 44 years in Australia – most of that time in Aboriginal communities – to stay in Australia.
The judgement by Chief Justice James Allsop said the Australian Government had to engage in "genuine consideration of the human consequences" and "honest confrontation of what is being done to people" when cancelling visas.
Phillips is also appealing a decision for Anya Weti-Safwan a New Zealand citizen who has lived in Australia since the age of three. Her six-year-old daughter is an Australian citizen, her parents, brother and step-siblings all live on that side of the ditch.
She's facing deportation to New Zealand because she has criminal convictions, mostly for shop-lifting and theft.
Uriaere would join at least two other recent arrivals to New Zealand who had never set foot in the country before.
Helen Murphy, who runs the Christchurch branch of the Prisoners' Aid and Rehabilitation Service (Pars), said one man arrived in the city in late November, and another just weeks later.
"One's from Rarotonga and the other from Samoa. Neither of them had ever been to New Zealand, they left those places with their families when they were young.
"They don't have anybody. There is nobody here."
Christchurch took in nine deportees in December and would bring in at least five more in January. Figures for the remainder of the country were not available before deadline.
"I'd hate to think how many Auckland gets," Murphy said.
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, who is also the minister of foreign affairs, said the government's was concerned about deportees with no "strong depth of connection" being sent here.
"It is Australia's sovereign right to determine its own policy settings, however New Zealand ministers and officials regularly raise broader issues highlighted by this type of case," he said.
Todd McClay, National's foreign affairs spokesman, said he could understand why Australians "would want some of these people out of their country".
"Just as when non-citizens commit serious crimes here in New Zealand, we should also be looking to send them home.
"However, where someone has never been to New Zealand, or has lived most of their life in Australia, it seems more of an Australian issue rather than one for New Zealand."
McClay's concern was people deported here "to continue to break the law".
"In Opposition the Labour Party made a lot of noise about the rights of Kiwis who have broken the law in Australia.
"Their Deputy Leader Kelvin Davis stood in front of Australian detentions centres demanding the Australian Government change its policy. However since forming the Government, as with many things, they've been silent on this issue."
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