Immigration New Zealand was forced to stop deporting all but the riskiest illegal immigrants after a budget blowout earlier this year.
No one was to be deported unless they were named on a list created by Immigration management when the funding shortfall was discovered in January.
On the list were 22 inmates due to be released from prison, 48 alleged criminals and 14 individuals whose refugee claims had been rejected.
It would cost $564,883 to deport all of them.
The problem was Immigration, after spending $914,000 in the first half of the financial year, only had $363,868 to last until the end of June.
The total deportations budget was $1.2 million for the 2017/18 year, a significant cut from $1.7m the previous year.
The blowout led to a flurry of emails between senior managers, released to the Herald under the Official Information Act, on how to handle the crisis.
Staff were told no one was to be deported unless the illegal migrants met strict criteria.
"Should we locate [redacted target] as Shandy suggested we will have a whip around and run a couple of raffles," investigator David Yandall joked in an email about the orders.
"I know this may have some negative effect on how we do things, but I still believe we can conduct quality investigations without using the authority to deport."
Money was so tight, one investigator who asked for $500 to deport someone who had been living here for 14 years - "this is a case of flagrant disregard of immigration law" - was rejected.
放公海自生自灭 ------------> that is why Australia is smart, put them in an Island belonging to another country so that it is not subject to Australia law.
NZ is too generous, won't want to learn from Australia.
Australia is more than willing to deport these people, and won't care much whether you still have connection in another country.
You can destroy your passport and won't be able to destroy your place of birth.
They will send you back to the place where you were born as a starting point.
" i remember there was a passport fraud in NZ where the person gained citizenship of NZ by fraud, it was later discovered and they send him back to China because it was his place of birth"