‘Thousands’ remain forced apart

Separated from his wife and children for more than 460 days, Colin Forrest can only hold on to the hope they will soon be able to join him in New Zealand.

Forrest, who arrived on a skilled migrant visa from South Africa last January, hoped his family would be included in yesterday’s border exception announcement for visa-holding partners and dependents who had not arrived before the border closed last year.

About 450 people who had visas before the border closed still had relatives overseas, Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi said. He acknowledged ‘‘thousands’’ of families would still be apart despite the new rule and since overseasbased visa applications remain on hold – except for healthcare workers and some highly-skilled workers – Forrest can only wait.

‘‘It’s tough,’’ he said. ‘‘We have sold the house [in South Africa] and have no ties to the country except citizenship.’’

Forrest, 43, is working in Napier’s construction industry and has two decades of experience working with steel to reinforce concrete foundations. His wife quit her job to join him in New Zealand with their two children aged 9 and 14, but this has been put on hold.

He has tried six times to get his wife and kids exemptions to enter New Zealand, without success.

‘‘We can’t plan at the moment,’’ he said. But he was staying positive.

Kyle MacFarlane, also from South Africa, has spent most of his 16-month marriage apart from his wife Jade. The pair planned to move to New Zealand to start a family but Jade’s partnership visa, which was lodged last February, had not been processed.

The 28-year-old high school teacher, who has settled in Whaka¯ tane, said he was ‘‘emotionally exhausted’’.

The pair spent three years planning their move, and Jade had since been offered work. Part of his anguish was not knowing whether the application would even be accepted.

‘‘I have almost in a way given up. I just want to go to sleep and wake up when everything is better,’’ he said.

‘‘I have stood in the rain outside the Hamilton immigration office. I just want someone to have a look at it and chance.’’

Wellingtonian Adam Gibbons is missing his fiance and has considered travelling to the Philippines to get her in a ‘fetch mission’ in the hope she will be granted a visa. A lawyer advised the pair, who have been together four years, that they wouldn’t comply with Immigration New Zealand’s living together test for a partnership visa, but general visitor visas have been suspended.

‘‘I am miserable,’’ he said. ‘‘I haven’t been with her or her two kids, who I consider my own kids, on coming close to 14 months.’’ tell me if we have a