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Thread: Expired travel conditions - please help!

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2015
    Location
    New Zealand
    Posts
    2

    Question Expired travel conditions - please help!

    I am a NZ citizen and my wife (Japanese) and I have travelled to Japan with our 9 month old son to see her family back here.

    She is currently on a Resident Visa. Once we got here we checked her passport out of chance and see that she has an expiry date of travel which has since passed in July.

    Reading up about it, it looks like her visa is now invalid as she has left the country so as I see it we have 2 options.
    1- apply for Permanent Residency, which is the desired end result but as she would have to apply in Japan, I need to return to NZ for work and would then have to spend some time apart from my wife and son which is not ideal.
    2 - travel back to NZ with her trying to enter on a standard visitor visa and then applying for the PRV when we are back in NZ. By the looks of it we need to satisfy 2 things, a return ticket booked mad enough money to cover the stay. Both we can organize easily.

    My fair is if we enter the second way she may be stopped and questioned and if we don't get someone with a heart then possibly deported which would be a big issue with our son as well. I would hope they would understand our situation being that she has lived in NZ for nearly 5 years and we own a house together etc but you never know.

    Wanting to know if anyone else has had the same situation or if anyone can offer any advice to our situation at all?

    Thanks in advance!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Posts
    37,824

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    I can tell you about a similar situation that my son got into years ago. As you say, it's all down to whether or not you get an immigration official with a heart at the airport.

    My son, a UK citizen who then had just a Residence visa, arrived at Auckland airport from a trip to Australia, with his NZ wife, baby and 3-year-old, at about 11 o'clock at night. Going through arrivals and getting pulled over by Immigration was the first time he realized that his travel conditions had run out. He was taken off separately and interviewed at length, and meantime his wife was kept in another room with the children, and also interviewed more briefly. After about an hour and a half, he was severely told off, and/but was granted a temporary permission to enter the country, with the condition that he must present himself at a named INZ office the very next morning to sort out and legalize his situation. So of course, he did that, and emerged with his PR visa.

    I know this isn't exactly the same case for your wife, because she has realized before making the trip home that her travel conditions are up.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 2015
    Location
    New Zealand
    Posts
    2

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    Yeah it's a tough one and I wondered about just playing the dumb card and saying we never saw it had expired but I don't think my wife could keep up the story!

    How long was your son out of the country? We are only on a 2 week holiday so I'm not sure if they would look at it any differently?

    Thanks again for your reply

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Posts
    37,824

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    Likewise - it had just been a couple of weeks' holiday, staying with friends. And yes, I think playing the dumb card is easier when you genuinely didn't know!

    I wonder if there might be any hope of getting help directly from the Tokyo VAC? http://www.nzembassy.com/japan/going...ealand/visas-6 Sort of throwing herself on their mercy?

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