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Thread: A complicated situation!

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
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    Default A complicated situation!

    Hi all -

    First post. Came across the forum while researching immigration issues & it seems like there's heaps of useful info on here.
    Got a pretty complicated situation, but here's a tiny bit of background -
    I am an American citizen, married to a Kiwi for 2.5 years (we've been together on and off for 5.5 years - the 'off' parts due to my having to finish up college on the opposite side of the country, and then me going to NZ on a working holiday visa bc he got me so interested in the country but could not join me due to his immigration status in the US. We have always been together while living in the same state). We are looking into getting our NZ paperwork done, and I have a couple questions.

    1 - Relationship evidence. We have a marriage certificate, photos of us together on various trips over the course of a few years, photos of us with our parents all together, probably a photo of us with his parents on our honeymoon, mail addressed to us at the same addresses at the same time (though not necessarily co-addressed -I have to go through our stuff to check). We do NOT have wedding photos (it was a small affair, done on short time), joint bank accounts (he would bring down my credit), nor joint tenancy agreements (we were subletting for a couple years, with no paperwork involved, and then were house-sitting for a couple years for friends. We can get them to write a letter saying we were living at the house together and are a legitimate couple. They know us well!). We also do not have joint bills/ proof of shared financial obligations because everything is in my name, since my husband's immigration status prevented him from being able to have things in his name. Also, he did not have a driver's license, so the truck, insurance, etc is all in my name. We are about the happiest couple we know - but also have a 17.5 year age difference, so naturally, we will probably have to prove more than most couples that we are legit. Our families and friends will vouch for us 100%, and the interview will be a piece of cake. I know just about everything about him, we have a great relationship history, and we're totally legit so there would be no inconsistencies, etc.
    Any input on what issues might arise & what we can do to convince Immigration we are legit?

    2) As for the character requirement - I have read all the threads on here about it, and just about all of them are along the line of "I was young and dumb, I can prove I'm a changed person." For us, our potential problems would be very recent, though no less repentant. We can quite honestly say, in detail, how we have realized that NOTHING is worth jeopardizing our ability to live together, how we have job offers back in NZ, and both are planning to have our own small businesses. I have a squeaky- clean record until recently, a college degree, straight-A's for my entire school career, and just want to run my own food business. He has some minor things in his past, like any good kiwi, but they are all 15+ years ago, and he never had any jail time... but then he has the recent problem as well. (Unfortunately, I'd rather not give specifics about the situation here, but I can say that there will be time served over 6 months, if even that, and I might not serve any, and there's no violence or anything involved.) My husband could very well be deported from the US, so NZ could be our only realistic chance to live together. I would like to think that this would be taken into account, and that it would take a pretty heartless person to keep a married couple apart, especially if we are going to be 100% on the straight and narrow back there, have job opportunities, heaps of things we want to do in NZ, etc.

    Any input would be greatly appreciated! Cheers!

  2. #2
    Join Date
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    Default

    Don't know anything about the character requirement, sorry. Do you need the waiver for both of you? That does sound rather complicated.

    As far as the relationship goes, for a residence visa based on the partnership immigration is largely interested in the 12 months preceding your application. So the more you can provide about that period of time, the better. Letters to the same address around the same time do count, photos of you together, letters from people who know you and know you are a couple will help as well. They really are interested in your everyday life as a couple, so anything showing that will help.

    I think if you don't have enough to show for a residence visa, there maybe a chance to apply for a more temporary visa, and then build up more evidence of your relationship while here, but I am not really up to speed on that one. Others here will be better placed.

    Daniela

  3. #3
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    Feb 2008
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    As far as the partnership element of the puzzle goes, you can look at this. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra...milystream.htm As Daniela thought, there's no problem with submitting for the partner-sponsored temporary work visa with just a few weeks (5 - 12, say) of proof, which gives the couple time to build up the necessary 12 months to qualify for Residence.

    The infringement of the law sounds as if it will be your biggest obstacle. With even the temporary work visa under partnership, the CO will be having to look ahead to the requirements for a residence visa, and there's a lot there to look at. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/35058.htm Unfortunately, they tend not to be easy to convince over a recent crime - the letter of apology, when there's been little or no time for actions to back it up, is bound to have overtones of apology for getting caught, rather than for the crime.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by JandM View Post
    The infringement of the law sounds as if it will be your biggest obstacle. With even the temporary work visa under partnership, the CO will be having to look ahead to the requirements for a residence visa, and there's a lot there to look at. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/35058.htm Unfortunately, they tend not to be easy to convince over a recent crime - the letter of apology, when there's been little or no time for actions to back it up, is bound to have overtones of apology for getting caught, rather than for the crime.
    Is there a specific period of time that must pass between an offense and when we can apply? An immigration adviser I talked to briefly thought there was, but didn't give me a specific amount of time. Going to call the embassy later, sure they have more info.

  5. #5
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    Nothing is written up, apart from the thing I gave you the link to. You won't even find details about how to ask for a character waiver. I believe the thought behind this is that it's NEVER regarded as any kind of routine with a predictable outcome. Every case is taken on its merits. I don't want to depress you, but it sounds as though the trouble with the law you are caught up in is still at the trial stage, and I very much doubt INZ will even look at you until the case is determined, as they will want to know the US authorities' decision on the seriousness of whatever has happened.

    The embassy aren't the authority that deals with immigration - they aren't set up for that at all. It's Immigration NZ. Contact details: http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra...ion/contactus/

  6. #6
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    I'm just asking a question here; I'm not trying to be accusatory but I'm asking you so that you have good answers when officials ask you. I am a US citizen who lived in the US with a Kiwi husband. I have several friends who are the same. I don't understand why your husband's immigration status kept him from having bills in both of your name or how a joint bank account would bring down your credit. Even an illegal immigrant can get bills in his name. If he overstayed and you then got him a green card after you were married, you would just pay a fine and he still could get bills in his name. Your FICO score wouldn't go down by adding someone to a savings or checking account unless you were habitually overdrawn and then it wouldn't matter the name on the account. Maybe a NZ CO won't ask about those things but you might want to think them through a little bit. Honestly, I'm not trying to get you to tell information and I don't know what I don't know. I suspect that you are trying to retain a good deal of privacy but there are holes there that if I notice, surely an immigration official will notice. My questions are more rhetorical than me requesting information from you.

    If you do have mail, postmarked, addressed to him at an address that you can prove through your bills that you also lived at, that would help. Do you have pictures just sitting around at home? The more things you have in chronological relation to your marriage and time living together, the better. I can tell you what I provided was something for every residence we lived at. Some of the things had both of our names on it. Some of the things had our individual names on them but I had something for both of us at each address. Do you have plane tickets with both of your names on it for the same time and destination. Every little thing contributes to the larger picture. My brother-in-law, a Kiwi, sponsored his American partner and they were travelling and living on a boat for a good deal of their relationship. They asked us to write letters establishing that we knew they were in a stable relationship and for how long we knew them. We even had pictures of them visiting us. Those letters really matter. I can't tell you what the interview would be like as we didn't have one.

    The US embassy in Washington DC is the same place that your immigration will be processed. Your CO will be one of the three people (perhaps they've hired more but I doubt it!) that works there in that capacity. If you call the consulate in LA, he will know nothing (I know this from personal experience). I found that while I was filling out my forms, calling the INZ office in NZ gave me the most informative answers. After we lodged our application, we called the Washington office to talk to our CO about our specific case.

    As to the second part of your question, I can't offer any useful information on that. Best of luck to you on all fronts.

  7. #7
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    If your husband is a kiwi, then he won't need a character waiver to return to his country of citizenship, will he? He'll likely face travel issues if he's deported, but not to return home.

    Now, you say you have a job offer in NZ, but also that you want to run a business in NZ. Is the company that offered you the job aware of your current legal difficulties? If not, are they likely to keep the offer open long enough for you to resolve them? I only ask because any visa officer will wonder the same thing. Also, as I don't think you need a job offer for a partnership visa, that factor would seem to be irrelevant to your visa situation.

  8. #8
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    Not sure if i am missing something here but if your hubby is a kiwi he will have no problems getting back into NZ i assume he has a kiwi passport or could get one pretty easily. With regard to yourself then you need to go for a partnership visa, if your confident you can meet the medical requirements then get the police check done first and see what it says cos that could be the breaking point as immigration this end are pretty strict on that front.

    By the way my other half is a kiwi and 16 years older than me and there were no questions asked about our age difference.

    Good luck hope things work out for you.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by kiwieagle View Post
    I'm just asking a question here; I'm not trying to be accusatory but I'm asking you so that you have good answers when officials ask you. I am a US citizen who lived in the US with a Kiwi husband. I have several friends who are the same. I don't understand why your husband's immigration status kept him from having bills in both of your name or how a joint bank account would bring down your credit. Even an illegal immigrant can get bills in his name.

    If you do have mail, postmarked, addressed to him at an address that you can prove through your bills that you also lived at, that would help. Do you have pictures just sitting around at home? The more things you have in chronological relation to your marriage and time living together, the better. I can tell you what I provided was something for every residence we lived at. Some of the things had both of our names on it. Some of the things had our individual names on them but I had something for both of us at each address. Do you have plane tickets with both of your names on it for the same time and destination. Every little thing contributes to the larger picture.
    Good questions. I think the main thing is we just didn't have a lot of bills - lucky us! The power bills would always be in the homeowners name. We had a sirius radio in my name, $17 a month, big deal. The truck reg & insurance was in my name because he didn't have a driver's license. The dog's bill was in my name because it was a credit account and I don't think my husband would've been approved, and in any event, we didn't know he could have it in his name. I think a social security number was required. He had an ipad acct in his name, again just a small bill. That was all of our bills. As for the bank accounts, we thought about getting them joined, but he is really bad about overdrawing his account and I'm much more onto it, so I figured we'd just keep them separate. Come to think of it though, I think his name was also on the phone/ internet acct, though I was the principal person, so I can probably request something from the phone company.

    We do have mail to us at the same addresses, maybe some co-addressed, and definitely some Xmas cards written to both of us. And bills to the same address. We are both pretty camera shy and not into taking photos, so we don't have a heap of photos, but definitely sweet photos of us together, and pictures of us and our parents together, and probably if we looked we could find some everyday sort of photos. I'm not worried about proving we're legit, bc we are, and we spend pretty much every waking hour together so we could go on and on about our common interests and things, and we'd have the same explanations for, say, why we DON'T have joint bills, accts, etc - mostly we do live a pretty simple, bare-bones life! - I was more or less wondering how many different kinds of evidence they'll want.

    Of course, the legal side of things is more the sticky point. I am not planning on putting in an application while we're still in proceedings, but I am trying to do as much research as possible so we know what we're up against. In any event, we should be able to start filing stuff within the next , say, 5 months. With the job opportunities, I seriously doubt legal troubles would get in the way - it's former bosses who know our character, work ethic, etc.
    Also, I know my husband doesn't need a character waiver to get back into NZ. The thing I'm worried about is that if he doesn't pass the character requirement, he won't be able to sponsor me, or that it might cast a shadow over our whole application. This is something I'm confused about - the good character requirement only specifically refers to not having committed an offense of a domestic abuse/ sexual nature in the previous seven years, but I would assume that other convictions/ immigration issues in other countries would also be held against them, right? (Any input on this would be great, as it's not clear at all from the website!) As for legal/immigration stuff in general, I have a squeaky clean record, again, until now, great school records, a college degree, etc, and I'm only in my 20s so I think I would get a wee bit more leeway on the "mistakes made while young and dumb" front than my husband, and I am already brainstorming how I can take business classes, classes in my area of interest for a business, etc, ASAP so when I do go to immigration, it shows that I am working toward a positive future, etc.

    Cheers for all the input, more to come I imagine!

  10. #10
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    My hubby sponsored me into NZ we did the forms and then he wrote a letter to go with it..........i dont remember anything on the form about his character being in question, but if your OH passport has deportation stamps or any such then yes checks would probably be made as they would have to check that he is a kiwi in the first instance and can only assume that things would appear. If not then why would they check other countries .........not sure about the young and dumb stuff lol

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