Family Kaur & Singh

My name is Amandeep Kaur and I was born and raised in India. I’m currently living in Tauranga, New Zealand (NZ) under a student visa. I moved from Punjab to the Bay of Plenty, NZ, to study towards my Master’s in Applied Professional studies in Adult Education at the Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology in Rotorua just before the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded in NZ. As soon as I have completed my initial studies here, my intention is to apply for a NZ Post-Study Work Visa.

My family has been living apart since 9 February 2020 (i.e. for 16 months).

I arrived in NZ in February 2020 from India and my husband, Parminder Singh, and our daughter, Dilpreet Kaur (who is now six-years old), were expecting to join me around the time the NZ border closed. Since then, we have been separated without any hope of reunification from the NZ Government anytime soon.

In Parminder and my 9 years together following our marriage in January 2012, this has been the first time that we have been separated for an extended period of time. I was working as a Professor back in India and was due to commence my PhD. When I started looking at further options for research in my field of education, I found NZ to be the best option to go to for my further Level 9 & 10 studies because my family would be able to come with me to NZ.

It was the best and the most appropriate thing for me at that time because I did not want to be separated from my family, and by learning about this option, I determined that this was the country that I must choose if I want to pursue my goal of being a researcher whilst staying with my family.

I applied to Immigration NZ (INZ) and came to NZ. Parminder and Dilpreet were all booked to join me in April 2020. At that time, I was expecting a separation of our family for just two months, and to be honest that was heart breaking and more than hard enough to handle! That has now converted into a 16-month, ongoing separation without any hope of reunification. This has shattered me completely.

It has all affected me so deeply emotionally, spiritually and mentally that it has now devastated all of my hopes and aspirations. I used to talk Parminder and Dilpreet every day, but I now try to avoid video calls with my daughter because it is very hard for me to see her. She asks for me every day and always asks me “when are you coming back?” I don’t have answers for her and now sometimes avoid video calling with her because I can’t handle seeing her face. I know what it feels to hold her in my arms and I currently feel so helpless. It’s like living without your heart. It has been particularly hard to focus on my studies.

Parminder is an engineer, and 6 Dilpreet is attending school online. I find it difficult to share my experience with others and I keep my feelings in my heart. When people see me they don’t find that how miserable am I, and they think I’m doing OK. I work in childcare and when I see the little girls playing it hurts because they remind me of my daughter. But they are happy and playing. So I stay tough.

I consider that it is inhuman to keep families separated. A child needs both of its parents.

This inhuman process needs to be stopped immediately and all affected families must be reunited.

We are humans, not the VIRUS!

Family Peters & Silva

My name is Mahesh Peters. I’m a Sri Lankan citizen and my wife, Surangi Silva, who is also a Sri Lankan citizen. I’m a father of two young girls aged 9-years old and 5-years old.

Our eldest daughter, Sadhali Elisha Peters, is a 9-year old Sri Lankan citizen born and raised in Dubai, since birth. Our youngest daughter, Clara Eliana Peters, is a 5-year old Sri Lankan citizen who was also born and raised in Dubai, U.A.E. Both the girls obviously started their educational journey in Dubai.

I worked in Dubai for 14 years as a head chef, and it was during that time that I met my wife and her family, and we got married in 2009. After a year and a half of marriage our first-born daughter was born in 2011, and 4 years later our second daughter was born.

I grew my career in Dubai working for an International hospitality group for 15 years, but we wanted to have a brighter future for my girls, so we looked at immigrating to New Zealand (NZ). After investigating and exploring opportunities in NZ we applied for a job vacancy.

I received a job offer to be the head chef for an amazing hotel and restaurant in Katikati called Talisman. In December 2019 I received my Essential Skills Work Visa (ESWV), which was issued for 3 years.

We said goodbye to Dubai on 20th February 2020 and flew back home to Sri Lanka, leaving our memories behind to settle our things in Sri Lanka before we immigrated to NZ. Leaving the family behind in Sri Lanka, I finally left for NZ on 28th February 2020. Days passed by and we still didn’t have details from Immigration NZ (INZ) regarding our family’s visa status. Then Covid closed the NZ border and things became stuck.

We had applied for Surangi and the girls’ NZ visas in January 2020 and my hope was to bring them for them to be able to travel with me to NZ or follow me across to NZ soon after. Unfortunately, their visas remain unprocessed by INZ. The girls are suffering a great deal not having me nearby. They have also been delayed with enrolling for NZ schooling due to the INZ visa delays we are experiencing, and we have incurred large unexpected expenses due to having to enrol them for schooling back in our hometown.

Our humble request is that the NZ Government please reunite our family. We desperately want to have our family life back to normal. We miss each other so much and we are suffering with sleepless nights, tears and loneliness. We are suffering mentally and physically, and our lives currently feel very stressful. It has now been 16 months (487 days).

Family Saini & Kaur

My name is Tarun Saini and I’m from India. I’ve been working in New Zealand (NZ) for the past 7 years. Today marks 584 days (one year, seven months and four days) since I said goodbye to my wife, Simran Kaur.

It doesn’t matter how dramatically you say it, it still doesn’t provide the full picture of the heartache, sadness, loneliness, despair, and feelings of despondency that we’ve been enduring every day.

NZ has always been our dream since my wife and I met 4 years ago, but it always seemed like it would remain a distant dream.

A brief journey of our relationship: I met Simran in 2017 in Delhi, India. She came to attend her cousin’s marriage in Delhi. We met there, enjoyed each other’s company and became good friends. Then I returned to NZ to continue with work, but we remained in close contact with each other through social media and phone calls.

In March 2018 I went back India to meet Simran and spend time with her. We went on a 3-day short trip to a hill station named Shimla together. We had a great time together, we started to better understand each other and, ultimately, fell in love.

We decided to meet each other’s parents in order to get to know each other’s families. They were all happy to see us together and decided to fix our Roka (the first step to marriage in Indian tradition), which means both families decide upon the date and place for the wedding.

On 7th November 2019, we got married and went to Goa for our honeymoon. We were together until November, then I had to return to NZ to continue my work. Simran was living with my parents at my place in Delhi. Unfortunately, Covid-19 entered the picture and all our best laid plans went out the window.

Since then we have not seen each other physically, but we remain in close contact through video calls and messages. None of this seem enough. It’s been a difficult time for both of us living separately. It has now been more than a year of ongoing stress as well as mental and emotional trauma.

It is difficult not to meet our loved ones and live a life that we haven’t planned. Though we know ours is not the only sad story, living apart indefinitely has been challenging and painful. We always get our hopes up whenever there is any positive news for the reopening of NZ’s border, but we are usually left disheartened when there’s another pandemic wave and we are left ignored.

The graph of Covid cases is now decreasing it is extremely heart wrenching for us to get our hopes up again. Since the NZ border will remain closed even after full vaccination, it doesn’t matter for us how quickly NZ will vaccinate its population. The current estimate for the vaccination rollout to be completed is December 2021 and Immigration NZ already have a visa hold until February 2022.

Living apart for such a long time is unbearable and we just want to be reunited soon.

Family Mohandas & Karimbath

My name is Rini Mohandas my story goes like this…

I am currently living in India and hold a New Zealand (NZ) partnership-based General Visitor Visa (GVV), of which the first entry date expired due to NZ’s border restrictions. My husband, Vishnu Karimbath, and I were in a relationship from school right through until university. Soon after completing our studies in India, we decided to build our future together and we knew by then that we would marry sometime in the future.

I decided to work in the UAE and Vishnu decided to go to NZ for further studies. Later, while I continued working in the UAE, Vishnu joined a reputable organisation for his work in NZ. The days continued and both of our families were on board with our future plans. They decided to make the necessary arrangements for our marriage.

According to Indian tradition, there is a ring exchange custom that is followed in both of our families. We returned to India to attend our engagement function and soon after Vishnu applied for my partnership visa to expedite my relocation to NZ. I got everything together for the application from the UAE and we made the application in August 2019. The wait started for Immigration NZ (INZ) to approve my partnership visa.

During the wait we set a date for our wedding to take place in India. We understood that we would have a minimum wait of three months for INZ’s visa processing, so I resigned from my job in the UAE and returned to India. Vishnu landed in India only a few days before the wedding because most of the companies in NZ would allow a small number of paid leave.

We held our wedding on 10th November 2019 and Vishnu returned to NZ on 3rd December 2019. I passed every day waiting for INZ to allocate my visa application to a Case Officer for approval. From August 2019 until 12th March 2020 I waited patiently until my partnership based GVV was approved. We shared all the necessary details to prove that our relationship was both genuine and stable, and responded to all of the Case Officer’s requests for more clarification. Immediately after the visa was issued by INZ, the NZ border restrictions took effect and overseas based partners holding GVVs (i.e. people like me) were not even informed about NZ’s border closure.

I waited from the time of the NZ border closure in March 2020 for any snippets of information from INZ regarding my impending travel to NZ. It felt as though my entire life was in the hands of INZ as I listened for announcements and any hopeful decisions concerning the partners of NZ based-work visa holders.

Because of the minimal time spent together the GVV visa was ignored by INZ. It is very painful for a legally married couple (who hold a valid Marriage Certificate) to be required that the relationship is genuine and stable. As we are still not able to live together, our plans to start a family feel a long time off. Our families are upset to see the impact of all of this on us.

We are still awaiting an announcement by INZ for those who held GVVs before the NZ border closure to submit an EOI to enable family reunification. Vishnu was not even able to travel to India for his vacation because he holds an Essential Skills Work Visa (ESWV). It has now been more than 1.5 years since I last saw my husband. We are also disappointed that there is no pathway to residency due to INZ’s restricted eligibility criteria.

Both of us have been suffering from severe stress issues. We now feel stuck in this dilemma given how long this separation has continued, and the inability to see when we will be able to start our life together. We request that he NZ Government understand the cultural importance of marriage and living together customs in countries like India and accept that a valid Marriage Certificate is sufficient to prove the relationship.

We request that the country not use COVID-19 and supposed limited space in MIQ as an excuse to keep migrant families separated.

We are both hoping for a better future soon, where we can reunite in NZ.

the NZ border will remain closed even after full vaccination, it doesn’t matter for us how quickly NZ will vaccinate its population. The current estimate for the vaccination rollout to be completed is December 2021 and Immigration NZ already have a visa hold until February 2022.

Living apart for such a long time is unbearable and we just want to be reunited soon. (The following given content is courtesy reunitefamiliesnz blog posts)