Immigrating from the US

[KattyCo]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post ... although I have been lurking for > a month ... gathering LOTS of great info ... thank you everyone who posted re: EOI.

We hopped into the pool in early November and were fished out on the 7 November draw ... yeah! We had one quick e-mail exchange with an officer from London and then received our ITA in early December (dated from NZIS as 29 November) ... double-yeah!!

Today we've sent off for police checks (16-18 weeks in the US), updated passports (4-6 weeks unless "expedited") and a duplicate diploma from hubby's University (unknown timeframe, but we've asked them to please be quick), which is for the NZQA assessment (20 business days unless "expedited").

Everything is going smoothly, but I wish we had started a lot of this paperwork *while* waiting to get the ITA ... I guess that would have been taking a chance that we would get the invitation ... but my advice would be that if you are confident that you have enough points ... get started gathering these things early ... I'm concerned that we're going to have to beg for an extension (our deadline for ITA submission is late March '08).

If anyone has questions about how to do these things in the US I'm happy to share our experience (had a small SNAFU regarding the fingerprints).

Cheers,
Kathy (& Bryan) ... hoping to be settling in Auckland by Spring '09

[MotherBear]

Hi Kathy (and Bryan ), welcome to MoveToNZ. Glad to have you with us and your knowledge of the procedure will be very valuable on here.

Hope the rest of your application continues to go smoothly. If you're thinking of immigrating in Spring 09 you should have plenty of time to sort things out.

Good luck!

[Cindy]

Hiya Kathy,

If you put a expedite date on the letter and on the envelope, they do those first. Mine didn't arrive for more than 3 months and so when I called, the person on the other end said that all envelopes with dates are processed first. I know this isn't helpful now but hopefully it will help those that haven't begun the process yet.

[Cindy]

oops, i forgot to mention that my previous response is regarding the police check.

[KattyCo]

Sweet! I put a date on the outside of the envelope *and* on the outside ... front and back ... I gave them our absolute latest date ... thinking now that I could have moved it up a bit for safety ... but we'll see.

Where are you in the process ... are you there yet?

[duane1x]

Hi Kathy, We are in almost identical circumstances, only we started the marathon 1 year earlier in Dec of 2006. Everything went smoothly on our end, too - the FBI checks turned out to come back very quickly - but the very slow NZQA assessment caused us to request an extension. That wasn't a problem but of course at the time we were worried.

We did get everything off in the mail within the 2 month extension, mailing the package 15 May 2007. In hindsight I think the toughest part of it was getting the medicals done for 2 adults and 2 kids. Since there are no panel doctors in the US you are kind of winging it, walking in with your INZ forms and hoping that the doctor will be amenable to filling it out. The pediatrician was great. My doc was fine. She did remark how detailed and extensive the paperwork was, compared to what she was used to. I think the novelty of the request helped. My spouse had the hardest time getting it all filled out.

We got the "approved in principle" in July 07 and booked flights over to look around ( a reccie?) in September. I think all along the way we were thinking, well, this might not happen... So why for example go to the expense and hassle of an NZQA report before we really needed it? Same idea with actually picking a landing spot in NZ. I guess some people are more familiar due to previous visits but not us. So we came over in September and we were still open to bailing out, but nothing changed our minds. There are threads in this forum with negative aspects so I think we have our eyes... well... half-wide open.

We came back saying, Game on, basically. We put our house on the market in October. Another question mark - how long will it take? Would we be willing to leave the country with it unsold? We decided we wanted to try to make school start in NZ on Feb 7. Tickets are booked for Jan 22. We'll be in Nelson Jan 24.

So I think your time frame of spring 2009 is very realistic. It also allows you time to think, time to not have everything be a fire drill, which makes for a much happier process. Now we're getting down to crunch time but it's still not that bad. Thank god for Craigslist! We're sloughing off furniture and appliances on a daily basis.

At this point it's beautiful summertime in NZ and we are ready to get there!

[Desirida]

Hi duane1x. Was interested to read your posting as we too have read some threads with more negative aspects in them and are now planning to have a trip over to check things out for ourselves. We have both been to NZ but it was a very long time ago. It is very encouraging to see that you decided that it was still for you. I see that you have decided on Nelson and this is also one of our possibles along with Christchurch. We love the look of the lifestyle but are not sure about work etc. What made you decide there? I am also happy to take our time in doing the whole thing to also get the children prepared for it.

Good luck with all your packing and sorting out! Have you managed to sell your house then?
Kate

[selchie]

Don't worry too much about getting everything in time to send off your application. If you were timely in your requests, you should have most, if not all that you need. In the last month, follow up on missing pieces. Be prepared to tell NZIS that you will send things when they arrive.

Because we had to mail off the chest Xrays, we had a big packet. It cost us about $35 to send everything Global Express (?) via the post office.

[duane1x]

Hi Kate, we did sell the house pretty quickly. I know parts of the US are in a housing funk, but Texas still seems to be OK. The oil business, after all, is not suffering.

We had Christchurch on the possible list, as well as Napier on the N. Island. Christchurch was the only city we considered, though we did fly into Auckland and spent a night in Wellington before we hopped the ferry. We live in a big city now and we want to be in a smaller town (at least, that's what we think we want). ;-) Also the hiking and outdoor sports at Nelson's back door are very appealing. We enjoyed the 2 nights we spent in CCh but in the end it was still a city.

As for work, we are very open. I may do IT work in the Nelson area, but I am going to wait and see what is available. I asked in the INZ interview if I have to do IT and was told that it is supposed to be "professional" work of some sort. They seemed flexible and so do we intend to be. My spouse is a printmaker/artist and she may fly back to the US to do one or more shows each year. Seems a little crazy but she is established in the market here and we don't know if the sorts of shows she does are even possible in NZ. All to be figured out as we go, so ask again in 6 months and the answers will no doubt have changed.....

Best of luck to you.