Lamer is a 20 year old woman with the biggest heart of anyone I know. She also happens to be a Chinese Kiwi who is about to be kicked out of the country for no reason. Just like many migrants who have come to call New Zealand home, she is being crunched in the machinery of Immigration NZ's routine neglect. 

Lamer is a passionate woman with integrity. She volunteers for Everybody Eats, Wellington's koha dining room which feeds many of the city's homeless with delicious food that would otherwise be thrown out, and has fearlessly spoken out about the abuse of women endemic to Wellington's nightclubs. She does more for this city than I do, and, for that matter, more than most of the kiwi-born people I know ever have. 

So, why are we kicking her out? Ask Immigration NZ.

Lamer was on a student visa until she was hit by severe depression. She went through hell trying to finish her degree, partly because she thought if she couldn't study, she couldn't stay. But when they heard her story, Immigration NZ told her she could legally apply for a Partner of a New Zealander visa. A few days later, she was served a deportation notice with no explanation and no avenue for redress.

Immigration NZ have failed us, and it's not the first time - nor, if we don't act, will it be the last. 

We want Immigration NZ not only to reconsider Lamer's case but to officially apologise to her and all other Kiwis from abroad who have had their lives destroyed by their mistakes. We demand that Immigration NZ be properly looked at in view of a total restructure of their processes. Immigration NZ is failing us, New Zealand. 

READ ON FOR LAMER'S STORY 

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Lamer, like many Chinese students, came here to get a high quality education and build the life she wanted. She studied hard until she started noticing serious fatigue, dark moods, and suicidal thoughts. Depression hit and she failed a paper for the first time. Then another, then another. After she found herself bedbound, she had to admit what was staring her in the face: she couldn't do it anymore. She knew she would have to forfeit her student visa and find another way to stay with her partner Ed and the rest of her found family here. 

This is where it gets bad, Immigration NZ. Under pressure of deportation, she decided to apply for a Partner of a New Zealander Visa. Finally, a ray of light. She was assured by two separate Immigration NZ officials that she could switch to a Partner visa, no problem. But when she applied, she got the worst news of a lifetime. She was told that she was an overstayer - and overstayers can't apply for visas. Our door, by all accounts, should have been open to her. What she got instead was a wild goose chase ending in a slammed door and an order to leave her life in New Zealand. Get out or else. Immigration NZ, what's going on? 

Now, Lamer is racing the clock to try to get Immigration NZ to reopen her case so she doesn't lose everything she's built in the past five years. 

When I met Lamer, I was a lonely, depressed student with a life so small you couldn't even see it through a microscope. She disarmed me and she showed me joy. She loved me when I couldn't love myself. She has a partner who she loves, and many friends, like me, whose lives won't work without her. New Zealand is Lamer's family now; we are her home. Lamer has been abused by the Immigration department of New Zealand, which is seen in some quarters as the shining light of the developed world. After this, I'm not so sure.

Lamer deserves better than this. We have to hold Immigration NZ responsible, New Zealand!