‘Absurd’ weapons suspicion delays residency application
Hooman Javaheri wants to become a permanent resident and finally buy a house. But someone in the Government suspects he could be planning to build weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
Javaheri moved to New Zealand from Iran in 2017, having gained a scholarship to study for a doctorate in chemical engineering. He says he is a quiet man, who drops his 3-year-old boy at pre-school in the morning, heads to work, and watches television in the evening.
He won an innovation award at his work, Waste Management, for creating a supply of hand sanitiser and disinfectant during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Yet Javaheri’s residency application has been delayed for three years due to a suspicion he might ‘‘contribute to developing weapons of mass destruction’’ in Iran.
A mysterious ‘‘third party’’ is said to be holding up his application – suspected by Javaheri and his lawyer to be the Security Intelligence Service (SIS).
‘‘I studied chemical engineering and my master’s focus was on air quality . . . I’m not here to make a bomb,’’ Javaheri said.
The suspicion has lingered for years. When Javaheri applied for a second student visa in December 2017, Immigration New Zealand sent him a letter almost a year later saying he may pose a risk to ‘‘New Zealand’s international reputation’’.
The letter, which Stuff has seen, said his prior employment, research and study in New Zealand meant he could help Iran build WMDs.
‘‘We all laughed at this, me and the supervisors, saying that, ‘How this is possible?’,’’ Javaheri said.
At the time, he was working on a project that essentially created a more sustainable toilet using a hydrothermal process – a chemical reaction – to break down waste.
His visa situation uncertain, and a child on the way, Javaheri was panicking and sought work. He thought it would make his visa application more straightforward.
He applied for residency as a skilled migrant in September 2018, and in the meantime was granted a work visa in 2019 to work at Waste Management. He has since been promoted to chemical specialist with health-and-safety responsibilities in the company.
‘‘Here I am, after three years. After three years of a life full of stress, not being able to buy a house while paying taxes, my wife not being able to study midwifery,’’ he said.
Javaheri’s lawyer, Alastair McClymont, said Immigration NZ had informed him a ‘‘third party’’ had held up the application and the matter was out of their hands.
‘‘I suspect they’re reliant on the SIS, who are then reliant on some of their overseas colleagues, who will be giving this a priority level at the extreme bottom end of urgency.’’
‘‘When you look into Hooman’s personal circumstances, you realise the absurdity of the suggestion that somehow his skills can be used for missiles or nuclear weapons.’’
Green Party human rights spokeswoman Golriz Ghahraman said Javaheri’s case appeared to match the ‘‘timeline’’ of a breakdown in the US-Iran relationship. In 2017, then US president Donald Trump withdrew the US from a deal that limited Iran’s nuclear activities.
‘‘No-one should be left in limbo in such a stressful situation in New Zealand, when they would otherwise have a right to have their status confirmed ... based on an unfair interference from the SIS, based on global politics,’’ she said.
Ghahraman wrote to the minister for the intelligence agencies, Andrew Little, about Javaheri’s case in April, asking him
‘‘I studied chemical engineering and my master’s focus was on air quality . . . I’m not here to make a bomb.’’
Hooman Javaheri
to consider any SIS intervention. Little said he could not talk about whether he was briefed about any individual, nor could he confirm any SIS investigation.
However, Little was aware of some detail of Javaheri’s case due to Ghahraman’s letter.
‘‘This an immigration case. And this looks to me like a case where he can’t get a decision, in which case the issue for him is whether he goes to the Ombudsman.’’
Immigration NZ confirmed Javaheri’s residency application was in 2018 shifted to an internal ‘‘specialist assessment team’’, which reviews applications that pose ‘‘potential risks to New Zealand’s international reputation’’.
This team had now completed its assessment, a spokesman said in a statement.
An SIS spokesman, in a written statement, said the agency would not discuss any specific individual, but it did provide Immigration NZ information on people who sought visas.
‘‘We would like to be clear that NZSIS involvement in providing this information to Immigration New Zealand, and the assessments themselves, is not influenced by foreign government policy,’’ the spokesman said.