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This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and is republished with permission.
A New Zealand woman made the difficult decision to stay in Lima, because her Peruvian husband was unable to enter the country.
Current border restrictions mean that only New Zealand citizens and residents can travel here.
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Ngaire de la Oliva Zamora and her husband José Luis in Lima.
But there are exceptions for couples, children, and parents of citizens and residents traveling together.
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Ngaire de la Oliva Zamora, a New Zealand citizen, said she and her husband were hoping to get seats on the government-assisted charter flight to Auckland.
They hoped for a positive result when they completed the immigration application form.
“We completed it and e-mailed it and he said that, due to the overload, it could take a few days to respond,” said de la Oliva Zamora.
“In a couple of hours, they responded and told us they had denied us.”
They were gutted and there was no way to appeal the decision, de la Oliva Zamora said.
They then had to contact the New Zealand embassy to tell them that they would not go through with their plans to get a seat on the flight.
“It took him a couple of days to get into action, the reality that we weren’t going to return to New Zealand.”
De la Oliva Zamora arrived in Lima five and a half weeks ago.
The couple married in Auckland in 2018, after meeting in 2008.
Before their trip, they had been separated by a year. They had planned to order her husband’s association visa application so that he could return to New Zealand.
“Within days, we locked ourselves up. It happened in an instant, like this, so there was no warning or anything.”
De la Oliva Zamora and her husband now face a long period of time in Peru under confinement.
She said that no one knew when the blockade could be lifted, or when they could leave.
She said the government-assisted charter flight was her last option to get home.
In a statement, New Zealand Immigration said José Luis de la Oliva’s request for an exemption to border restrictions was rejected because it did not demonstrate that he met the requirements for an association visa.
He said he had no information about the couple’s marriage and that it had not been mentioned in their previous visa applications.
Based on the limited information included in the request for an exception this time, Immigration said it could not confirm that it met the association requirement.
Therefore, he was not invited to apply for a visa to enter New Zealand in exceptional circumstances, Immigration said.
Sixty New Zealanders and three Australians were on board the flight from South America that landed in Auckland this morning.
This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and is republished with permission.
