Some Afghans who took court action to force the processing of their applications for New Zealand visas are still waiting for an answer six months on.
After a judge at the High Court in Wellington said their applications for residence visas must be promptly considered and decided, 26 people from the group of about 70 have arrived in New Zealand.
Fifteen more have visas, but have not yet made it to New Zealand.
The group are clients of Community Law Waikato. Legal services manager Angela Smith said a group from Community Law went to Auckland in April for an emotional meeting at the airport with several families.
“There were little kids who had been hiding in the mountains, living in small houses having one meal a day,” she said.
“Most of the families have houses now, they’re learning English, going to school and some whose English is pretty good are looking for jobs. They’ll do well.”
Their families already here had found them accommodation and were supporting them.
Community Law Centres O Aotearoa chief executive Sue Moroney said six months on from a successful High Court case to have their visa applications considered, the process had not worked out as planned.
The easier applications were processed quickly. One family was declined, but 29 people were still waiting for an answer and were running out of resources, she said.
READ MORE
- $6 million more given for Afghanistan's humanitarian crisis
- Death threats, hangings, and jewelry: Afghan family's incredible escape story
- Afghan women judges safely in NZ, but there is concern for those who remain
- Afghanistan evacuation: From ‘not feasible’ to underway within days
Four more are in New Zealand under temporary visas while their refugee family support applications are considered.
It had been extraordinarily difficult to extract people from Afghanistan, Moroney said.
“Both aspects [obtaining visas and leaving Afghanistan] have not gone as well as we would have hoped,” she said.
Members of the group were in grave danger due to help their family members gave to the New Zealand Defence Force, she said.
The Afghans applied for visas – some as early as 2018 – but had not received answers before March 2020 when, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, New Zealand cut back the categories of people who could enter the country.
Conditions in Afghanistan changed rapidly when the Government fell to the Taliban and United States troops withdrew in August.
The recent easing of border restrictions lifted one layer of complexity so travel arrangements no longer needed to include co-ordinating a place in a managed isolation facility on arrival.
Travel out of Afghanistan was still a fraught process, Moroney said. Most left through land borders, but those who wanted to leave also had to find ways of collecting from official offices the visas for New Zealand and other countries they needed to pass through.
Most of those who had made it to New Zealand were now in Waikato.
Moroney thought a lack of staff at Immigration New Zealand had caused delays even once the court directed immigration authorities to consider the Afghans’ visa applications.
Immigration New Zealand’s general manager of border and visa operations, Nicola Hogg, said the undecided cases were complex. She could not say how long the process might take.
They were working with the clients’ representatives to decide all cases, she said.
As well as the group from the court case Immigration New Zealand said that from August 14, 2021, to April 28, 1635 people had arrived in New Zealand from Afghanistan, but that number included some New Zealand citizens and residents.
It also included 1391 who arrived on emergency visitor visas, including people who helped New Zealand defence force, police, aid programme, and with Operation Burnham, an inquiry into alleged civilian casualties and torture of detainees during the deployment to Afghanistan.
