A lawyer claims that Immigration New Zealand is scrambling to cover up that they could have deported Karel Sroubek years ago.

Alastair McClymont says Immigration claimed they couldn't send him out of the country in 2009, because he was discharged without conviction on a false identity charge

He says that's not true, and Immigration's just not done its job.

"Under two sections of the immigration act, a person can be deported just by using a false identity in a residency application.

They don't need to be convicted in a court before deportation can actually take place."

Sroubek not only did that but went through the entire residency process under the fake name Jan Antolik.

McClymont says people are deported regularly for far smaller mistakes without a conviction, such as ticking the wrong marital status box on a residency form.

"They miss things like European drug dealers using false identities to get into the country because their focus is in one direction and they aren't focused on what's happening in the other direction. Immigration New Zealand could have got rid of him back in 2009."