Indian mother loses last-minute appeal to stay in NZ

A young Indian mother being expelled from New Zealand could pass through Auckland airport just as her six-month-old daughter is returning to the country.

"They could literally be passing through the airport at the same time without seeing each other," Colin Amery, the woman's lawyer, said last night after a failed last-minute bid to keep her in the country.

Mr Amery asked Judge David Harvey at the Manukau District Court to delay a removal order until the child returned to New Zealand, but the judge declined to stay the departure.

Sukhjeevan Kaur, 19, is due to be put on a plane at noon tomorrow.

Judge Harvey said the woman, who arrived in New Zealand in April last year on a visitor's permit, had been in the country illegally since January.

Mr Amery said he was making the application on humanitarian rather than legal grounds.

If the removal order were delayed seven days to see if the child was returned to New Zealand, he could apply for the woman to be allowed to stay under international conventions relating to the family group.

But the child had to be in the country for him to advance that application.

Mr Amery told the court that the woman was in an unfortunate situation and faced an uncertain future in India as a woman who had given birth out of wedlock.

He said Ms Kaur conceived the child in India but gave birth to her daughter in New Zealand.

Outside the court Mr Amery said that, having been born in this country, the child was a New Zealand citizen. A baby born in New Zealand is automatically entitled to become a citizen.

He said that the woman was now in a de facto relationship with the brother of the child's father.

She had been living with her partner and his family in Pukekohe.

Mr Amery said that her partner's family took the child to India without Ms Kaur's knowledge or consent.

He speculated that they may have wanted to seek payment from the woman's parents by way of a dowry.

Mr Amery said he had received information in the past 24 hours that the woman's "in-laws" might be returning the child to New Zealand in the next few days.

It was on that basis that he applied for the delay in removing the woman.

"The law is one thing, but humanitarian considerations are another. Unfortunately this is one of those borderline cases, but the law must take its course."

He assumed that if the child were returned to New Zealand, she would be brought up in her de facto partner's household.

Mr Amery said that following an "ugly incident", Ms Kaur left the home and went to report the matter to Pukekohe police.

But instead of being the complainant, she was arrested as an overstayer.

"She now finds herself in the unenviable position of having to leave the country."

In an affidavit referred to in court by Crown counsel Simon Mount, immigration officer Murray Gardiner said that the woman said in an interview last month that she did not want to go back to India, she had nothing to go back for and that she would kill herself.

He asked for the woman to be kept in custody.

Judge Harvey said it was highly likely that the woman would flee if released before her flight back to India.