Carol Babbage, 62, moved to Britain in 1967 with her Kiwi mum and British stepdad and was granted indefinite leave to remain here.

She has raised three children in this country and served in the Army in Northern Ireland during the Troubles in the 1970s.

But despite previously working in the care industry Ms Babbage recently discovered she was unemployable after applying for a cleaning job.

She claims she was then told by the Home Office she cannot and must not work - but has been given no explanation why.

The government said it was now reviewing her case - but Ms Babbage believes she is victim of a tightening of immigration controls despite spending nearly all her life in Britain.

She said she had also been told that she will not get a state pension and now fears her NHS treatment may be withdrawn.

Ms Babbage, from Liskeard, Cornwall, first realised something was wrong in 2016 when she was told by a cleaning firm she could not be employed because of her migrant status.

She said she had never applied for a British passport because her NZ passport states she has "indefinite leave" to remain in the UK.

It is understood that because this was previously shown as a stamp in her passport, it is no longer deemed valid as records are all kept digitally.

Ms Babbage, who has three children – Simon Babbage, 31, Angelina Fletcher, 25, and Daniel Babbage, 20 – has now been out of work for over a year.

She said: "It's impacted me to the core. If I don't find employment I don't know what is going to happen to me.

"My ex-partner has been standing by me, and I'm grateful for what he's done. Work is the main issue in this, because when that was taken away from me it caused disbelief in my close family and friends and they have had to take the burden.

"That was the worst, because I do have the right to work - they had no right to take it away. For someone who has worked all their life it was quite a jolt.

"The bureaucracy side of it was shocking, how it was dealt with, when they had all the answers their in front of them.

"They have offered me a 'citizenship ceremony' to go through, which was the biggest humiliation I've ever heard of in all my life. It would make me a British citizen and that would make me eligible to get work. 

"I have to have this to get back into work, instead of the automated system that is free."

She added: "I took an oath, under Queen Elizabeth the second when I joined the services.

"I do not need to stand in an immigration centre and state it all over again to be allowed to work. 

"That is ridiculous, I am actually reeling and I am trying to gather my thoughts on it because as a New Zealander who has all the rights, what on earth are they doing? 

"Why are they doing this? They can't just come along and make me do a ceremony, absolutely not."

Her British ex-husband Steve Core, who is helping Ms Babbage with her case, said: "She received a call from the Home Office and was asked, 'are you at work?'

"She said no, and the woman said, 'well good because you cannot work, you must not work'. She wasn't told why and she hasn't been told in writing. 

"She came over here years ago with the stamp in her passport saying she had indefinite leave to remain, but now that’s been abandoned and the data is kept in the chip.

"What they're now saying is that you have to go through the system and apply for the citizenship. Every step is a huge fee, and she doesn't want to pay."

"When she applied for a job in Plymouth three years ago she took her passport as requested and the person looking at it said there is no right to abode in this one, so there is a query regarding her status in the country and therefore the work she had applied for was not forthcoming.

"If it's not stamped in the passport they expect an additional piece of paper submitted with the passport which confirms the status.

"Immigration has been tightened up, Theresa May said she was going to create a hostile environment for migrants and she has done exactly that, and Carol has been caught up in all this."

The Home Office said it was "considering" options available to Carol and said she had not been asked to leave the country.

A spokesman said: "We have contacted Ms Babbage and, now we have further details about the case, are considering the options available to her."