A petition has been launched to stop the deportation of a disabled Indian man who is set to be forced out of New Zealand at the end of April.
Narinderjit Singh moved to Aotearoa with his family 22 years ago. They were on a visitor visa and later applied and were accepted for residency.
He uses a wheelchair, is paralysed from the waist down, is a polio survivor, and a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.
But in 2014, Singh was convicted of wilful damage of a car. He said a neighbour had been constantly bullying him, mocking his disability, and taunting him with racist comments. Singh said he complained to the police but nothing happened.
Then, during a major mental health episode, he snapped and drove his car into the neighbour's car. No one was injured and Singh pleaded guilty to the offence.
"If it was just up to me or if I was in the right mind, I wouldn't have done that, I wouldn't have done anything like that," Singh told Newshub in February.
The conviction impacted his residency visa and last June, two men arrived at his home and served him deportation papers. His benefit was also cut off.
Singh needs the support and care of his family since they do everything for him, and his specialist medical team is in New Zealand. In India, he has nothing. He would live alone with no support, no help, and no money.
"It will be hard to get the right treatment, the right medication, the right care. My life is pretty much over in India."
A petition to stop his deportation has been launched and urges Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi to intervene.
"We all know this is not the Kiwi way because our Prime Minister is always telling us to 'Be Kind'. Please be kind to Narinderjit and cancel his deportation," the Change.org petition said.
The petition said Singh has been "repeatedly let down" by the system because he wasn't given appropriate support to take care of his mental wellbeing.
"That led to Narinderjit making some not so good decisions and ending up on the wrong side of law," it said.
"Given his condition and disability, his survival in India is impossible. The Government has issued him a death sentence."
So far, 354 people have signed the petition.
Newshub has contacted Faafoi for comment.
In February, immigration lawyer Alastair McClymont said he had tried to appeal and sent extensive submissions, including psychiatric reports, to the Immigration Minister and Singh's local MP, but said it was all ignored.
"It seems baffling they won't look at it when it's a Government that claims to be ruling with kindness, compassion and empathy, yet they want to send a disabled human being to his death in what is basically a foreign country," McClymont told Newshub at the time.
He said he doesn't believe Singh has adequate legal representation at the time he was charged.
"He was encouraged to accept the charges as they were without putting forward a report about his psychiatric condition."
Green Party MP Ricardo Menéndez March also said in February that the Immigration Minister needed to intervene and stop the deportation immediately. He also wanted the immigration policy changed to better support those with disabilities.
"Political inaction that is resulting in destroying people's lives," he said.
"So again we are looking at calling on the Minister to prioritise this sort of work so that disabled people don't have to go to the media to plead for humanity and a right to dignity to be recognised."
