The bureaucratic box-tick that could kill a woman's family - and the lives that sit in Phil Twyford's hands

A New Zealand passport is held to the wire around Kabul International Airport as people try to escape an Afghanistan back under Taliban rule in 2021. Photo / Supplied

A mum of two is bracing for news her parents have been killed in a crushing conclusion to a series of unfortunate events that began with bureaucratic inflexibility nine years ago.

The Herald cannot reveal the identities of the Hamilton couple whose Afghan parents seem destined to face Taliban reprisals without the intervention of Associate Minister of Immigration Phil Twyford.

Personal details would increase the extraordinary risk their families already face.

But the Herald can reveal the series of events that led to the Hamilton woman's parents and siblings fleeing to Iran in fear of their lives. It was a temporary respite and time is running out.

Much of the heartache and worry began with a tick in a bureaucratic box made in January 2013.

It was then her husband, an interpreter for the NZ Defence Force in Afghanistan, took part in an interview for a visa to move to New Zealand.

He told Immigration NZ he was single, which he was at the time.

Ten days later his mother told him she had found him a wife. Two months later he was married. Three months later he flew to New Zealand alone because, try as he might, no one would change his relationship status to "married".

So, while other interpreters settled in New Zealand with their wives, the interpreter and his new bride spent their first year apart because a form marked "single" could apparently not be changed.

While his wife joined him a year later, that inflexibility over his "single" status had flow-on effects. It meant she arrived on a visa that didn't allow her to access services - such as English language training - other interpreter families did.

It also meant she was ineligible in 2017 to register as an immigration sponsor for her family because she was not physically on the flight that carried her husband out of the country - even though Immigration NZ accepted the couple were married at the time.

The final NZ Defence Force Provincial Reconstruction Team rotation in Afghanistan in April 2013, when the first group of interpreters flew to New Zealand. Photo / Supplied

Like many with family in Afghanistan, it was frustrating - and when the Taliban took over again, it became a matter of life or death.

Immigration NZ's border and visa operations manager Nicola Hogg said the agency recognised the situation was "stressful" for the family.

She confirmed the woman did not travel to New Zealand with her husband in 2013 "because their marriage had not taken place at the time he applied for his visa". She was later "granted a partnership visa which allowed her to join her husband in New Zealand".

Hogg said the woman attempted to register as a sponsor to bring family to New Zealand. The woman was not able to do so because she was not "a partner or dependent child of an Afghan interpreter who accompanied them to New Zealand" and "was not considered to be an eligible sponsor".

Hogg said a request for special ministerial intervention to grant a visa had been made in June 2022. In such cases, Immigration NZ pulled together information to help Twyford, the associate minister, make a decision.

While the process could take several months, Hogg said cases that were urgent were prioritised.

"This case has been prioritised," she said.

The Herald then tried to find out whether Immigration NZ was still compiling information or if the couple were simply waiting on Twyford.

A spokesperson for the Associate Minister of Immigration said: "We are awaiting further information from the individual's representative, and as such the case is not yet ready for consideration."

The answer increased the distress felt by the Hamilton couple - they are adamant they have not been asked for any further information. The last email they say they received from Twyford's office - provided to the Herald - stated "your request has been accepted … [and] will be considered as soon as possible".

The interpreter's wife told the Herald of how the couple's families lived in different cities in Afghanistan but had been brought together by a chance friendship between their respective fathers.

New Zealand Defence Force personnel at the Kabul International Airport in 2021 on a mission to rescue people from the Taliban-ruled country. Photo / Supplied

Documents she provided to the Herald showed her husband had taken part in an interview for a visa to move to New Zealand in January 2013. He had described himself as single, which he was, although the possibility of marriage had been on the horizon as she approached the age at which most of her peers married.

Then the interpreter's mother put a squeeze on her bachelor son and the prospect of marriage moved much closer.

She told the Herald of the customary meeting between families about 10 days after his visa interview. Then came March 2013 and an elaborate, multi-day wedding which began with a blessing in a mosque and ended with a party.

The couple then had 20 days together - their first real chance to get to know each other - before he returned to work at Kiwi Base in Bamiyan. Once there, documents show he tried to change his marital status without success.

With his flight scheduled to leave in late April, he returned for a few days to break the news he was going.

She described the year that followed as agonising. She had never left the city in which she was raised and the prospect of her husband in another country seemed like an unbridgeable gap.

"I was thinking to myself, 'maybe he will leave me here forever'. And if he does get a visa, then how do I go there?" The latter concern was based around a cultural condition that she not travel alone, which she felt strongly as did her parents.

Throughout the year, they could only speak by phone and, even then, reception was poor and calls costly.

Her husband's attempts to join her were thwarted by document foul-ups and it seemed too hard. As it was, she was able to travel with the second group of interpreters and arrived in New Zealand in 2014.

A group of New Zealand visa holders trying to reach an evacuation flight as the Taliban take over Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2021. Photo / Supplied

"I was excited and happy to see and meet [her husband] again but I was also sad whether I would see my parents again because I had left them behind me."

Her arrival at a different time and on a different visa meant she was unable to take up English language lessonsoffered to others who had arrived with their interpreter husbands.

"For a few months, I was happy and enjoying New Zealand but I couldn't communicate with adults. I was staying at home a lot. Even going to the doctor or midwives, I couldn't communicate."

In the time since, she has received residency and the couple have had two children. She attempted to sponsor her parents to come to New Zealand but found that she was ineligible because she did not arrive in New Zealand with her husband.

When Afghanistan fell to the Taliban last year, her hopeful expectation at seeing her parents was replaced by a fear they would disappear forever. Events transpired that placed her family at particular risk - the Herald has been provided details - and she was told not to call even as they removed all evidence of their links to a daughter in New Zealand.

It later emerged they had fled to Iran, along with thousands of other Afghans, including her husband's family.

Time is particularly pressing for her family. They have extended their visas as much as possible. Iranian police regularly ship busloads of Afghans to the border, forcing them to return to a country ruled by an increasingly hostile Taliban.

She knows the threat under which her family left. They will try to hide to try to conceal their identity but she fears the Taliban's intelligence gathering and ruthless justice.

"If the Taliban know who they are, they will kill all of them."

An Royal NZ Air Force flight evacuating Kiwis and Australians from Taliban-held Afghanistan in August 2021. Photo / Supplied