KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's US-based member of its equestrian team, Kirk Webby, was told by US immigration officials that if he left the country to compete for New Zealand in the Olympics, he would have to wait nearly a year to re-enter the USA.
Webby has lived legally in America for the past decade and his wife is an American citizen, the New Jersey Star-Ledger reported.
"Not a lot of options, and they were all bad," said Webby, 37, a son and grandson of horse breeders.
"The world fell in on us," said his wife, Robin. "Real hell."
Their two children, aged 4 and 6 were also caught up in their parents' dilemma. They faced moving out of the only home they had ever known.
The problem was Webby's immigration status. He is a New Zealand citizen, on a professional athlete's visa. After he married Robin, he applied for permanent residence status, a green card.
Usually, immigrants who apply for permanent residence must remain in the United States while the change in their status is considered. If they leave, they cannot come back. Sometimes for a year; sometimes, much longer.
There was a solution. It's called "advanced parole", available in emergencies. Immigration officials determine what constitutes an emergency.
"I honestly did not think there was a problem," says Meaghan Tuohey-Kay, Webby's lawyer. She said he had a good record, was not an overstayer and was likely to get a green card.
But just a week before he was scheduled to leave for the Beijing Olympics, Webby was told his application for advanced parole was denied.
He would have to file another request with a regional immigration centre, which would take two to three months: too late for him to be in the Olympics.
So Webby faced leaving the United States without parole and having to abandon his home and business, or forget the Olympics.
Webby and his wife own Tolleshunt Farms in Whitehouse, where they train horses and riders and take care of horses owned by others.
"I couldn't do it by myself," says Robin, the daughter of a jockey. "And I wouldn't want to break up the family." The children, Zachary and Jade, were born in the USA.
"We were going crazy," she says.
After questions from journalists, Shawn Saucier, a spokesman for the US Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, announced there had been a "misunderstanding".
Webby could get his advanced parole and leave with his horse, Sitah, a 13-year-old mare.
The couple received the good news while competing at the Horse Park of New Jersey in Allentown. He took it stoically.
"That's good," he said, and smiled. Robin burst into tears.
So, they didn't have to choose, but they had made a decision, the Star- Ledger reported.
"I would have gone to Beijing," said Kirk Webby, Olympian.
- NZPA
