Basketball is Stephen Paea's life.
He says he lives and breathes it from the moment he wakes up to train.
"I never knew what basketball was until I started out at high school, Hastings Boys. I got to do some basketball down there, and then I just loved it ever since."
As well as playing in local teams, he has been selected to go with the Tongan National Basketball team to the Solomon Islands for the Pacific Games.
"My main dream is to play professional basketball," he said.
But Paea has a problem — he's an overstayer in New Zealand, and, until recently, hadn't realised that.
"It was traumatising. After school, I was pretty much lost, and I did have ideas about what I wanted to do, but because I found out that I didn't have a visa and wasn't a citizen in New Zealand, I couldn't really do that."
The 19-year-old came to New Zealand when he was two years old. He's terrified he'll be deported to Tonga — a country he's never known.
"If I was to go back to Tonga, I've pretty much got nothing. I don't know anyone, don't know where to go, what to do," he said.
In 2017 Immigration New Zealand (INZ) estimated there were more than 1000 overstayer children under the age of 17.
Now six years later, there are no updated statistics, although INZ is currently working on this.
Also unknown is how many teenagers are leaving school and heading into an uncertain future.
Lawyer Richard Small from Pacific Legal said options are limited for long-term overstayers. While they can apply under section 61 of the Immigration Act, if they are turned down, INZ does not need to give them the reasons why.
Small said there is a clear lack of transparency.
"A tiny number can get through, and it is not a sensible process, it is a broken process. It's in the political too-hard basket."
Officials from the Tongan National Basketball Association (TNBA) are helping support Paea in his fight to stay here.
TNBA director of national teams Cahn Fitzgerald said Paea has been in the New Zealand education system all his life, and he deserves the right to live here.
"I think for younger people navigating the system can be difficult, so just having that support to really navigate through quite a complex immigration system."
She said Paea has a great work ethic, is engaged in the community and is an asset to society.
Paea said he just wants to feel like he belongs.
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