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!