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Editor's Note: The name of Mary Ann Rollins' husband was not released and pictures were not included due to the fact that he is still living and working in Afghanistan as an interpreter for the military.OREM — A Utah woman has created an online petition for her husband to be able to come to the United States from Afghanistan to meet their year-old son.
As Mary Ann Rollins and her year-old son, Ryhan, flip through photos of his father, the toddler brightens up and smiles.
"Who is that?" Rollins said to her son. "You know who that is?"
Ryhan has never met his father, but Rollins is working eagerly to unite their family, because her husband is stuck in Afghanistan. Rollins deployed to Afghanistan in 2008 with the Utah National Guard and fell in love with the Afghanistan native.
"He was an interpreter, so I was working with him," she said. "He was actually translating for me."
Rollins was deployed in Afghanistan from February 2008 until she came home in February 2009. When she came back to the U.S., the couple kept the relationship alive and Rollins returned to marry him in October 2011.
She applied for a spouse visa, as soon as she got back to the states.
"I had all of the forms ready, and as soon as we were married and I came back, I submitted everything," she said. "I figured about a year. I figured he would be here; I was hoping."
She thought they'd be together as a family by now, living here in Utah County.
"I was hoping he would be here in time for our baby to be born," she said. "But, it didn't work out that way."
I was hoping he would be here in time for our baby to be born. But, it didn't work out that way.
–Mary Ann Rollins
Ryhan is now more than a year old, and Rollins has a young daughter from a previous marriage, who is eager to meet her stepfather. Rollins' husband had an interview at the US Embassy in Kabul in February. At the time, Rollins thought her husband might walk out with his visa.
"I was pretty excited — I thought he was going to be here, and he didn't," she said.
Rollins said she has been informed by the State Department that his case is still in "administrative processing," along with 30 pages of other pending visas she discovered online.
"We've been waiting for the last seven months," she said.
She believes the delay is due to additional security checks for Afghans, but KSL could not confirm that Monday evening.
"On the one hand, I'm thinking it could be any day," she said. "On the other hand, the days keep going and nothing happens."
She started an online petition to help bring her husband home. Each time the petition receives a signature, an email is sent to the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, and the State Department, urging them to unite Ryhan with his father.
"I keep hoping maybe it will be tomorrow," Rollins said. "Maybe it will be next week. Maybe it will be sometime soon, and then nothing."
Rollins said she even had Sen. Orrin Hatch's office look into the delay of her husband's visa. She said the senator told her they are getting the same answer — "administrative processing."
Rollins and her children Skype with her husband, but he has never held them in his arms.
"We've done everything, and there's nothing to do but wait," she said. "It's really frustrating to not able to do anything."
To sign the petition, click here.
