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Thread: Holiday Visa for Adult Daughter - Character Requirements

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    5

    Question Holiday Visa for Adult Daughter - Character Requirements

    Hello,

    My 23 year old daughter is considering coming to NZ for six months to travel and is interested in a holiday visa because it would allow her to pick up a gig from time to time. I'm a NZ PR and my husband/her stepdad is a NZ citizen so I did ask if she'd consider residency but it was a resounding "no" as she feels she has her own life in the US.

    She lost her father unexpectedly at 12 years old and in her grief and desperation she engaged in impulsive and risky behaviors. It all came to a head at 14, when a "friend" asked her to hold his backpack claiming he'd be right back and shortly there after she was approached by a police officer who asked to search the bag, and she was arrested for drug possession.

    During the court proceedings she was offered a deferred sentence if she pleaded guilty. As part of the deferred sentence she attended court required therapy, had regular drug testing (which were all clean), regularly checked in with her probation officer, completed community service, and after 12 months of probation her sentence was successfully deferred. She's planning to move to New York mid next year and we thought it would be great fun if she came for a visit before her move. We're not clear how feasible it will be given she had an arrest and conviction as a juvenile. It's been nearly ten years since the arrest but the deferment process required her to see a probation officer for a full year so it's not been a full ten years since she was arrested as a juvenile.

    She's deeply embarrassed about what happened and is nervous her request will be declined because she was arrested for drugs. If she applied for a holiday visa, would she be automatically declined under the character requirements? If it is an automatic decline, what recourse (if any) do we have?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Posts
    37,823

    Default

    Here https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/#46509.htm are the grounds for outright refusal, and the link goes through to here https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/#35057.htm for the paragraphs mentioned. From what you say about what happened to your daughter, these paragraphs do not apply to her case.

    Here https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/#43627.htm are the details of the requirements for needing to apply for a character waiver for a temporary entry class visa. She would have to declare her arrest and what happened afterwards, and if the CO then required her to apply for a character waiver, she would have to write a letter explaining the situation, and supply character references for her life since, and now. If you do a search on the forum for "character waiver" you will find many old threads on this matter.

    Here

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