A lawyer for Tongan overstayers says deporting people with medical conditions to an area devastated by a cyclone is perverse.
Cyclone Ian caused widespread damage to the Ha'apai island group in the kingdom last month, destroying more than 800 homes.
The immigration lawyer, Richard Small, says the New Zealand authorities are wanting to send overstayers back to the area, and he has 30 such cases on his books.
Mr Small says some of the islands are far from medical help in Ha'apai's main centre.
"Forty-six kilometres, across largely open ocean, in a small craft, to get medical assistance, to a capital of Ha'apai that has been all but flattened. To return people to that situation is perverse to being any kind of a good neighbour."
Richard Small says New Zealand should introduce a two-month moratorium on deporting people to Ha'apai, on humanitarian grounds.
