Stateless man Harmon Wilfred with his wife, Carolyn Wilfred-Dare, in the beachside Christchurch suburb of Sumner in 2005.

They cannot work, travel is near impossible and, in many instances, they cannot marry or own property.

Being stateless in a world structured around nation states is, according to the United Nations, to "face a lifetime of obstacles and disappointment".

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates at least 10 million people around the world "are denied a nationality".

In New Zealand, there are thought to be just two.

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Harmon Wilfred claims to be a former CIA contractor, an asset who "unwittingly" participated in, and later blew the whistle on, a plot to launder billions of dollars for a "CIA/Clinton ... black ops 'super fund'".

In his own words, he is now an "unwanted alien on planet Earth"; an exile in New Zealand.

Immigration New Zealand (INZ) cannot release details of the other known stateless individual, but confirmed that person is not subject to a deportation order.

And now, Wilfred isn't either.

DAVID ALEXANDER/STUFF The Wilfreds have been separated since September 2015, when Carolyn left New Zealand to see family in Canada and was denied re-entry to the country.

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In the past seven years, INZ has deported 4578 people from New Zealand at a rate of about 670 a year.

They may have left the country, but Wilfred has remained – protected by his stateless status and lack of valid travel documents.

INZ first issued the former US citizen with a deportation order in February 2011 "following the conclusion of multiple immigration applications and appeals", years after his legal right to stay in the country lapsed in 2004.

To enforce it, they asked American authorities for travel papers. The multiple requests were evidently refused, because in February this year INZ quietly withdrew the deportation order.

"Mr Wilfred is still unlawfully in New Zealand and it is our expectation that he will make immediate and urgent steps to arrange his departure from New Zealand," INZ assistant general manager Peter Devoy said.

The Americans, for their part, were tight-lipped. A US Embassy spokeswoman said it was against policy to comment on individual cases or situations.

And so the "unwanted alien" remains. His friends and supporters have railed against the supposed injustice of his situation, describing the New Zealand Government as a de-facto jailer.

"He is neither permitted to find employment and earn his living in New Zealand, nor to travel outside it," friend and business partner Hugh Steadman wrote in 2016.

"Though imprisoned in what might appear to be a gilded cage, with no end in sight, his sentence appears to be for life."

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Wilfred, who is understood to live in Lincoln, outside of Christchurch, chose to become stateless.

He and his wife, Canadian food company heiress Carolyn Dare-Wilfred, arrived in New Zealand in 2001 to avoid what he describes in one email as alleged political retribution and safety from CIA death threats.

In 2005, while still living in New Zealand, Wilfred relinquished his US citizenship. He claimed he did so because the US Consulate General refused to return his passport.

"For my personal freedom and safety and to avoid being sent back to the US for further abuse, I was advised to renounce my US citizenship," he said in an open letter posted to his website.

The US is one of the few countries in the world that allows its citizens to relinquish their citizenship without holding that of another nation. When it is relinquished, the act is "irrevocable", the US Embassy spokeswoman said.

Those who relinquish citizenship are advised of the consequences, including "the possibility of statelessness should they no longer be a citizen of any country and unable to secure a passport".

But the choice is up to them. The only way to get it back is to follow the same path available to any other immigrant – Lady Liberty smiles equally on former citizens and new applicants alike.

Wilfred may have severed ties with his former country, but like great swathes of the world population he took an active interest in the 2016 presidential election.

The CIA "financial conspiracy" he supposedly outed to the US Justice Department in 1999 was, Wilfred claims, also sponsored by the Clintons. He did not want to see Hillary Clinton elected.

And so, in the open letter referred to above, he set out his story to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. To "Make America Great Again", he told the New York realtor, "you have to first defeat the Clinton political cartel".

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Wilfred offered his help to do so. "It is my sincere hope that with your help, my story will be confirmed and can be told without further fear, intimidation or retribution by the Clinton political juggernaut".

He told the future president about the forced separation from his wife, Carolyn Dare-Wilfred, who was denied re-entry to New Zealand after leaving the country to visit family in Canada in September, 2015.

The Dare Foods heiress's business visa had expired, and an application for residency under an investor provision was later declined by INZ, leaving the Wilfreds separated by a vast expanse of ocean.

It has not been confirmed whether a proffered meeting with Trump was accepted as Wilfred declined to answer questions for this story – this despite the protestations of supporters like Steadman that the media have ignored his situation.

In response to written questions about his immigration status, Wilfred said "due to my very unpleasant past experience with your newspaper over the last decade, I must decline any communication with the Christchurch Press and all [Stuff] media organisations …"

The stories in question referenced his failed business dealings. The High Court declared Wilfred bankrupt in December 2016 over unpaid legal bills.

WHAT IS STATELESSNESS?

DARRIN ZAMMIT LUPI A stateless child takes part in a demonstration of African immigrants in Malta.

In short, being stateless means a person does not have a nationality of any country. Some people are born stateless, while others – like Wilfred – become stateless.

"Legally they don't exist," a video on the UNHCR website states.

The body attributes several causes, including discrimination against particular ethnic or religious groups, the collapse of and emergence of states and changing borders, and gaps in nationality laws (27 countries, for instance, do not allow women to pass on their nationality).

Due to their lack of legal standing, stateless people are "denied a legal identity when they are born, access to education, health care, marriage and job opportunities during their lifetime and even the dignity of an official burial and a death certificate when they die", a UNHCR report on the subject said.

The plight of stateless people has been described as inhumane and a blemish on international law, while late US Supreme Court justice Earl Warren described it as a "form of punishment more primitive than torture".

In the south-east Asian country of Myanmar, the Rohingya ethnic group – described as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world by the UN – are denied nationality through the country's citizenship laws.

The UNHCR is almost midway through a 10-year project to end statelessness by 2024. To do so it has set 10 goals that must be achieved, one of which is for states to sign up to two UN conventions on statelessness.

New Zealand is a party to one of these, the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. The New Zealand Citizenship Act apparently gets the tick of approval in complying with the convention.

The act allows children born in New Zealand who would otherwise be stateless to acquire citizenship automatically; children born abroad to a New Zealand citizen by descent also become citizens if they would otherwise be stateless.

The Minister for Internal Affairs has the power to grant anyone who would otherwise be stateless citizenship.

The issue is a rare one in New Zealand.

Christchurch immigration adviser Mike Bell said, being surrounded by ocean, almost everyone entered the country by air – allowing authorities to vet who came in.

INZ's Peter Devoy said stateless people could still travel to New Zealand if they had travel documents and met visa conditions. United Nations travel documents would be sufficient, he said.

Bell said it would be rare for stateless people to arrive in the country. If they managed to so without a visa, he said there was "no safety net".

They would not be able to work, nor would they be able to receive any benefits. "Being in a stateless position in New Zealand would not be a good position to be in.

"You'd be falling through every crack there is."