The person, identified only as Mx B, was born in Australia in 1989 to New Zealand parents and should have been granted automatic citizenship on their 10th birthday under the Citizenship Act. However, the ombudsman report found that “poor record keeping” and incorrect assessments by the department led to the unlawful detention.
Mx B was convicted of criminal offences and sentenced to prison in 2010. While incarcerated in 2018, Home Affairs carried out a citizenship status assessment and incorrectly concluded Mx B was not an Australian citizen, citing their brief departure from Australia as a baby. The ombudsman said officers “failed to consider relevant case law about absences from Australia.”
A second assessment in 2019 also wrongly found Mx B was not a citizen. Upon release from jail in 2022, Mx B was placed into immigration detention. Despite claiming Australian citizenship “on multiple occasions throughout their detention,” the department conducted a third assessment in 2024 and again reached the same erroneous conclusion, “failing to take into account the new information” from Mx B’s legal representative.
The detention continued until April 2025, when the New Zealand government informed Home Affairs that Mx B was not a New Zealand citizen. The department then applied the High Court’s NZYQ ruling, which had declared indefinite detention of non-citizens with no prospect of removal illegal, and granted Mx B a Removal Pending bridging visa on strict conditions.
The ombudsman report describes “three incorrect citizenship assessments” and a series of departmental failures, including incorrect assumptions and failed checks over four decades.