Tag: visa

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I am a NEW ZEALAND RESIDENT

I KNOW, RIGHT?!

And this is where I sheepishly admit that I got residency three months ago and am just now writing about it. I’m so far behind on blogging that I missed posting about basically the most important achievement of this entire visa journey. 🤦🏼‍♀️

But my delay in this announcement doesn’t change the fact that I finally get to type this sentence:

My Partner of a New Zealander Resident Visa was approved on July 6th, making me a legal resident of New Zealand.

Somewhat amusingly, I wasn’t even in New Zealand when they finally granted me New Zealand residency. I was in the States for three months, working at my old job and spending time with family and friends, when the email came through. (Because I was out of the country when it was approved, it actually didn’t officially begin until August 22, when I got back to NZ).

The turnaround time from when I submitted the Partner of a NZer Resident Visa (Jan 6) and when it was approved (July 6) was six months to the day; Immigration’s website at the time I applied said that 80% of these visas are decided upon within 7 months, so it was right on schedule (Immigration updates its approximate turnaround time for each visa monthly).

This new visa allows me to continue living and working in NZ, and traveling in and out of NZ, for two years. After those two years are up on August 22, 2027, I can either:

1. Stay in NZ legally, forever, but never leave, or

2. Apply for the Permanent Resident Visa, which of course is the option I’ll go for. The Permanent Resident, which will be my last visa (!!!), is the cheapest ($315 NZD/$184 USD), easiest, and fastest (most are approved within 3 weeks) of them all. And then I’m good forever! (After five years of having Permanent Residence, I can–if I meet the criteria–choose to apply for citizenship. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it).

Pictures of gorgeous beach flowers to break up the blocks of text.


As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, you can’t apply for the Partner of a NZer Resident Visa until you and your Kiwi partner have been living together for 12 months. I applied a few days after Stu and I hit that mark–January 7, 2025. Because my first visa, the Partner of a NZer Work Visa, was due to expire on May 22, 2025, and my Resident Visa wouldn’t be approved until at least July 2025, I had two options: leave NZ before my Work Visa expired and return once my Resident Visa came through, or renew my Partner of a NZer Work Visa for the new tune of $1,630. I thought it was a no-brainer; I’ll just book a one-way ticket home to the States and wait it out while I spend time with my family and friends. Perfect!

Except that it wasn’t. I was advised against doing this by two separate immigration lawyers, both of whom told me that my decision to fly out of NZ, alone, on a one-way ticket without knowing when I’d be allowed to come back in wouldn’t be looked upon favorably by Immigration, since my entire application was based upon the strength of my partnership. This annoyed me greatly–why do two people have to be together constantly just to prove their commitment to one another?–but after thinking it through, I decided to go with their advice and re-apply for (and re-pay for) another Partner of a NZer Work Visa to cover me for the estimated 2-3 month gap between visas. It costs me $1,630 NZD ($951 USD), which is a hell of a lot of money to pay for 2-3 months, but I admit that it did give me peace of mind about going back to the States for a bit. The second work visa was approved on March 3 and was good for two years, giving me plenty of coverage.

On June 30, while I was back in the States, I got an email from a nice immigration officer named Stacey saying that she has been assigned to my application. (This is the only communication I’ve had from an actual person at Immigration; everything prior to this has been generic correspondence in the form of a PDF in my Immigration account inbox). Stacey was writing to ask why I left New Zealand on May 31, and for what purpose, and when was I returning, and why wasn’t my partner with me, and could I please respond to her within four days (all of this is information she was able to access since she has both of our passport numbers).


I was expecting this email. A Kiwi friend of mine has an American partner who is 15 months ahead of me in the same visa process. Like me, he was in the States while his Resident Visa was processing, and he’d received an email inquiring why he was abroad without his partner. My friend said Immigration would probably send me a similar email, and reassured me that I was doing everything by the book, my reasons for traveling were completely legitimate, and that I shouldn’t worry.

Don’t worry! Piece of cake.

Something that many of you already know about me is that I essentially exist in a perpetual state of heightened anxiety (“energetic” is a nice way of putting it; “neurotic and high strung” is also accurate), with a steady stream of worry always percolating in the background. Even when I’m going about enjoying my day, there’s always that simmering sense that something awful could definitely happen at any moment. And on the rare occasion I don’t have anything specific to worry about, my brain will kindly invent something for me. It’s like a backwards worry stone; my brain needs something to worry about just to soothe itself. I know; it’s messed up. Being a high-strung human does have its perks: I can do the work of 27 people in a day, I multitask like a champ, and if you want me to do something for you–oh, look, I already did it before you finished asking!! And it’s not like I feel constantly alarmed, just constantly…ready to panic at the drop of a hat. Increased productivity aside, it does suck that as soon as something even remotely unexpected or stressful happens, my entire being goes “OKAY, THIS IS WHAT WE’VE BEEN TRAINING FOR” and my brain has a ?!@#$!! heart attack.

So you can imagine how I reacted when this perfectly rational, friendly, and fully anticipated email from Immigration arrived in my inbox, asking very reasonable questions to which I had perfectly acceptable answers. My head went into fight or flight mode: they’re going to reject my application because I’m overseas, I’ll be out thousands of dollars, they’re going to ban me for life, and I can never see Stu or his kids or my NZ friends again. You know; a really rational response. 🙄

I immediately messaged the aforementioned Kiwi friend whose American partner is on the same journey, and she calmly (bless you, Molly) walked me through how to respond to each of Stacey’s questions, which I did. I didn’t hear back from her [🧠: PANIC], but 7 days later I got an email from Immigration with my Residency Visa attached.

For anyone who’s curious, here is what the visa looks like:

I still can’t fully believe it. It hits me in little moments, such as when Stu and I recently booked a weekend away and I reflexively reminded myself to add it to the (now-deleted) “Imm NZ Significant Events” list in the Notes app on my phone, and then remembered that I do not, ever again, have to keep a running tally of important events and their corresponding dates to submit to anyone as proof that our relationship is genuine. I can just…relax.
[🧠: “LOL”].

I honestly feel like this all happened very fast (do any of you feel that way?). It seems like just yesterday that I started this blog–it was in fact Dec 2023–to chronicle this wild immigration journey, and I pictured myself writing updates for years and years and years. Technically this isn’t “done and dusted,” as they say here, until I get Permanent Residency in 2027, but by all accounts that’s practically a given once you get residency. This was the big one.

I’ve written a lot here, but I want to close with this:
I vividly remember when I began seriously looking at moving to New Zealand. It was the US fall/NZ spring of 2019, about six months before I’d ever even set foot there. I was deep in the process of getting divorced, holding ideas of varying degrees of creativity and insanity up against my life to see if any of them could work. I could do anything I wanted to do, go anywhere I felt like going! I knew at the time that I should have felt “free,” but all I could feel was “f**king terrified.”
To give myself some breathing room, I went to my local library, logged onto one of their computers, and googled “how to move to new zealand.” I landed for the first time on the Immigration New Zealand website I would come to know by heart.
Apply now to visit, study, work or live in New Zealand, the homepage said, and it then guided me through a series of dropdown menus.
I am a citizen of [United States of America].
I want to [live permanently] in New Zealand.
I do [not] have a job offer.
I clicked “Find Visas” and fewer than a half dozen options came up, most of them completely out of reach. I checked the “Skilled Shortages” list, knowing already I wouldn’t be on it. I left the library feeling despondent and discouraged.

It’s strange now, looking back, to realize that what I once thought was impossible was simply something I hadn’t done yet.

Aroha/Love,
H. ❤️

“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” – Francis of Assisi 

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“On a Scale of One to Ten, How Satisfied Are You With Spending a Ton of Time and Money Trying to Move to New Zealand?”

Gorgeous early evening walk home along the estuary. New Zealand often looks like a painting to me.

A few days ago, I received an email from Immigration New Zealand inviting me to complete a “customer experience survey” for the chance to win $100 NZD.

Yes, really. I thought it was as weird as you probably do, but it’s legit. There’s a brief page about it on INZ’s website explaining that they arbitrarily choose a selection of applicants and invite them to share their feedback. The email said that the survey was conducted by a “third party independent research company” called Gravitas OPG Limited, and assured me that Pfffft, of course none of my responses would make their way back to them, Immigration NZ, the ones who are currently in the process of determining if I should be granted a Resident Visa that would allow me to continue to live and work in their country.

It seems like…not the right time to be asking me to give honest feedback.

After I have completed the process and gotten all the visas I need? Giiiirl, hit me up and I’ll spill the tea. ☕️💅🏻

But during the visa process? Like, as someone is actively reviewing my application for residency, and then my survey comes in to Immigration NZ “third party independent research company Gravitas OPG Limited,” and there’s a company-wide email sent around asking whomever has been assigned to Hilary Emerson Lay’s case to please report to their supervisor’s office immediately?

As they say here in New Zealand: Yeah, nah.

And it’s not anonymous, since you have to enter your name and contact details to be eligible to win the $100 NZD (which, by the way, is a smidge over 1% of what I will have paid Immigration to complete the entire visa process).

I considered not doing the survey, but then I thought maybe Immigration would see that I hadn’t responded, which would either mean that I’m irresponsible and/or had nasty things to say about them. So I completed the survey, giving them ten out of ten stars across the board. In all honesty, I was mostly truthful in my answers: Yes, I’ve found the process to be fairly straightforward. Yes, I have found the anticipated wait times to be accurate. However, No, (keep this between us), I did not find that the INZ representatives were always helpful, since on a few different occasions while speaking to a few different immigration people I have received a few different answers to what I considered to be pretty straightforward questions, such as “My current visa expires April 1st. When should I submit my next application?” and the answers were “As soon as possible,” “Mid-March is probably the best time,” and “A day or two ahead of time is fine.”

Also, the fact that they dangled $100 NZD–or any prize at all?–as an incentive to take their survey seems weird. Like sure, Verizon, I’ll take your stupid survey in hopes of winning a hundred bucks, but a government agency? If you’re going to dangle any carrot here, how about, I don’t know, full citizenship?

Don’t get me wrong, though: I will gladly take your $100 NZD because you guys are the BEST!!! 😍 (😬)

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A Step by Step Breakdown of the “Partner of a New Zealander Resident Visa” Application

Legal disclaimer: as stated here, I am in no way, shape, or form a licensed immigration advisor, and nothing I have written should be taken as anything other than my personal experiences.

Wherein I walk you through the nine page application, page by page, so you know what to expect and what you’ll need to gather together ahead of time. This post is for that one person who may or may not ever stumble upon this blog while googling what the PNZerRV application looks like (you’re welcome, internet stranger). For everyone else: proceed at your own risk of potential abject disinterest.

(Because I promised to never post without photos, please enjoy this brief interlude):


Date I applied: January 7, 2025
Cost: $5,360 NZD ($3,024 USD)
Processing time: 80% of these types of visas are decided upon within 7 months.
TIP: You can start this application at any time and save your progress as you go. I highly recommend starting well in advance of the time you plan to submit, especially when it comes to gathering things like letters of support from friends and family and finding a notary.

Page 1: “Identity and Contact“
Basic information about you: full name, date/place of birth, passport number, social security number, phone number, current address, most recent address in your home country, and a few other easy questions.

Page 2: “Visa Details“
What kind of visa you are applying for (that is, are you the partner of, or the child of, the “support person” (aka the person supporting this visa application). It asks if this support person is a New Zealand citizen/resident/expat, and also asks if you are currently living together and have been for 12+ months, which is a requirement for this visa.

Page 3: “Supporting Person Details“
Basic information about your supporting person. Their full name, date/place of birth, passport number, and a few other easy fill-in-the-blank type of questions.

Page 4: “Additional Applicant Details“
Asks you if there will be additional applicants (i.e. a child); a quick Yes/No question.

Page 5: “Principle Applicant’s Health Details“
This has a big block of Y/N health-related questions such as “Do you have tuberculosis,” “Do you require renal dialysis,” “Do you require hospital care,” “Are you pregnant,” etc. It asks you to list any country you’ve lived in for 3+ months during the last 5 years and then asks if you submitted a general medical exam and chest x-ray on your prior visa application, and, if so, were they done within the last 36 months (if not, they will very likely make you get new ones done).

Page 6: “Principle Applicant’s Character Details“
A long list of Y/N questions related to any criminal background activities you may have. My favorite questions are “In any county, including New Zealand, are you currently under investigation, wanted for questioning, or facing charges for any offense?” and “Do you have an outstanding arrest warrant in any county, including New Zealand?”. I’m curious to know, considering that you are giving them your current address, SSN, photo, passport information, and the names and addresses of your parent and siblings, if anyone has actually ever answered “Yes” to any of these.
It also asks if you’ve provided a police certificate from your country within the last 24 months (yes, I have. I talked about the process of getting it here).

Here’s a list of the questions:

Page 7: “Family Details”
They want to know the names, addresses, dates of birth, partnership/marital status, occupation, citizenship, and country of birth for your parents and siblings (living or not).

Page 8: “Apply on Behalf/Assist“
Asks if you are completing the application on behalf of someone else, and if you received assistance from an immigration advisor (a quick Yes/No).

Page 9: “Upload Documents”
Here’s where you upload all the documents they require, as well as ALL the documents you’re not required to submit but absolutely can submit. Uploads must not exceed 10 MB, and if you have multiple things to submit that all fall under the same category, combine them into one PDF.

Let’s cover the required documents first. You’ll need to upload a photo of your passport, a passport-style headshot, your birth certificate, and your” ID card” (this one is optional, but I uploaded my social security number card). If you’ve had your required medical exam, you enter your eMedical reference number.

  • “Evidence that your relationship is genuine and stable” (I uploaded the letters that my mom, dad, and sister wrote, combining them into one PDF).
  • “Evidence that you have been living with your partner for more than 12 months” (we used a letter from our landlord).
  • “Timeline of Partnership” This part of the application took me far and away the most time (I wrote a blog entry about my process of writing it here). Because I’d already completed the timeline through March 2024–when I applied for my partner work visa–I just needed to pick up where I left off and finish out 2024 with significant events and milestones in our partnership, things like when he took me to visit his hometown for the first time, when we spent the day together edxploring Wellington, and when he finally got to meet my family and friends in the States. When I first started compiling the relationship timeline about a year ago, I realized pretty quickly that it was going to be long; I can’t not tell a story if there’s a story there to tell. What I ended up doing, for better or for worse, was to submit an extremely long document that starts off by explaining that pages 1-3 were the abridged partnership timeline of simple dates and events for brevity’s sake, but if the person reading this had time, pages 4-16 were where the real story was.
  • “Evidence that your partner is a New Zealand citizen” (I uploaded a photo of Stu’s passport).
  • The completed “Partnership Support Form for Residence (Form NZ 1178).” (Stu had to fill this one out and get it notarized. The form asks for much of the same information I’d already given them, such as full name, date/place of birth, address, etc).

    That’s all of the required information. Technically, you can stop here, proceed to the next page, enter your credit card details, and submit your application.

    But from everything I’ve read and everyone I’ve talked to, you don’t want to do that. You want to give them a whole lot more. In fact, I possibly gave them too much more; the dropdown list of things you can give them is so vast that I figured “why not!”. Apologies to the immigration officer assigned to my case. 😬

    So after you have satisfied all of the required uploads and it says “Are there any other documents you wish to provide in support of your application?”, you say HELL YES THERE ARE!

    Here is the full dropdown menu of options for things you can provide them with to lend more weight to your application:

Wait, there’s more…


I have no idea what some of these mean (“Plans in New Zealand”?) and some of them don’t apply to me (“Australian passport”, Right to remove a child”).

But I did have things I could upload that fell under some of these categories. Here are the categories I used and what I uploaded under said category:

Genuine and stable partnership evidence (I uploaded each of these as its own PDF since they are separate items):
* Letters of Support from our family and friends (all in one PDF). I asked my friends and family back home to write us letters, since they had now met Stu and seen us together as a couple, and then I asked everyone who had written us letters of support for my first visa to update those letters for me.
* A photo timeline I created in Canva. It starts with the very first photo we ever took together and ends with our visit to see his sister last week. It’s 23 pages of well-laid-out and captioned/dated selfies, social media posts (complete with all the likes and comments), pictures we’ve taken of ourselves at concerts, pictures our friends have taken of us at concerts, pictures with the friends who took pictures of us at concerts, pictures of me and the kids, pictures of our trip to the States last October, pictures of Stu with my family. When I began adding fun clip art like guitars and pumpkins, I realized I was back in middle school doing some lavishly illustrated (and totally unnecessary) picture to accompany a one-page book report and that I might be seen as a sycophant vying to be “Immigration Officer’s pet” (as opposed to teacher’s pet). I left the guitar and pumpkin clip art but didn’t add anything else.
* Our WhatsApp chat history. I downloaded our nearly five-year correspondence (minus photos) and then paid 99 cents for PDF Guru to compress that massive 12.86 GB file into a PDF small enough to upload. (And then you have to cancel the 7 day free trial before you start paying for PDF Guru).

Police certificate: I uploaded a copy of my squeaky clean NZ background check, which I requested here. You fill out and sign a very brief form, upload it, and they email you the results within a week (there’s no cost associated with this). Again, I’ll emphasize that at no point had I been asked to provide a NZ background check to Immigration, but since it was free and easy I thought it wouldn’t hurt.

Evidence of Shared Financial Dependency: Screen shots of our joint BNZ account

Evidence of funds: Screen shot of my personal BNZ checking and savings accounts

Evidence of financial dependency: Screen shots of our utility account with both of our names on them, as well as screen shots of every time my half of the rent came out of my account and into his.

Driver’s license: I uploaded photos of my Massachusetts and NZ driver’s licenses

Evidence of employment and business being undertaken. I uploaded screenshots of my paystubs for my landscaping job

Records of previous travel: Screen shots of receipts for all of our flights to and from the US (with our names on them), as well as Air BnB receipts from our travels around New England

Once you have finished uploading everything you feel will help Immigration make a positive determination on your application, you save your progress, go back to page 1, and neurotically proofread the whole nine pages. And then you click “Next,” check a box saying that this was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and enter your credit card number to pay them a s**tload of money. A few days later you will receive an automated email saying they’ve received your application and will be in touch if they need more information. Otherwise, you will be notified when they have made a decision on your application.

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Visa Update #5: Interim Visa Granted!

Legal disclaimer: as stated here, I am in no way, shape, or form a licensed immigration advisor, and nothing I have written should be taken as anything other than my personal experiences.

Keep those champagne bottles corked; this isn’t THE visa that I just applied for. This just means that my case has been assigned to an Immigration Officer who has determined that yes, I provided them with all of the documents they need and that yes, I can now remain in New Zealand for six months until they make a decision. It doesn’t mean they won’t be contacting me with questions or asking me for more information once they actually begin reviewing my application in depth, but it’s still a relief knowing that I’m rubber-stamped to stay here in the meantime. And it feels especially good because a year ago today, I was weeping into my suitcase as I packed to fly home to the States 24 hours later, not to return to NZ for ten whole months. There shall be no suitcase-packing today! (Also hopefully no crying 😆).

The basic parameters of my Interim Visa are that I do not work (duh) and that I don’t leave the country or else the visa is nullified and I have to start all over again.

Current processing time for the Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa is 11 weeks. Stay tuned. 😊

For those of you keeping track: I submitted my visa application at 5:30 PM on Friday, March 22 and this email from Immigration was in my inbox when I woke up on Wednesday, March 27.

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Visa Update #3: Telling Your Beautiful, Intimate, and Private Love Story to a Complete Stranger Is Just As Complex And Icky As It Sounds

Legal disclaimer: as stated here, I am in no way, shape, or form a licensed immigration advisor, and nothing I have written should be taken as anything other than my personal experiences.


Lemme start out by filling you guys in on where I am with the visa application.

As I detailed in my brief, calm, and not at all insane visa update last week, I have now completed all of the required medical exams.

I’ve made three calls to Immigration thus far to clarify a number of questions I’ve had. The biggest question, which I asked all three people, was “How late can I submit my application?”. I want to submit it as late as possible, since that gives me a chance to collect even more proof of our partnership, i.e. bills we have both been paying. I asked each of the three different people at Immigration and received three very different answers, which is both infuriating and baffling.

My Visitor Visa, the 90-day visa I was automatically granted the day I arrived here, expires April 1st. The first person I spoke with said that I could submit my application “right before my current visa is set to expire.” The second person I spoke with said Oh god no, early March at the latest!! The third person I spoke with said that it takes about a week for Immigration to look over my application and decide whether it’s completed to their satisfaction, in which case they issue me an Interim Visa which allows me to stay until they’ve made a ruling on my case.

The third guy sounded the most confident, and his answer made the most sense, so I’ll be submitting my application the weekend of March 23/24.

Here is what I have left to do before I submit it:

  • Fill in the names/addresses/phone numbers/DOB for three (it doesn’t specify the number, but three is the general consensus) people I know who live in New Zealand. From what I understand, these people will not be contacted unless I flee into the hills of Aotearoa and go into hiding. In other words, it’s just a safety net so that Immigration has a starting point if they need to track down someone who violates the terms of their visa (by overstaying, I imagine).
  • Stewart has to complete Form INZ 1146, “Partners Supporting Partnership-Based Temporary Entry Applications.” Despite the lengthy form name and the fact that it’s six dense pages long, it will take less than ten minutes to complete. It’s a lot of basic information—full name, DOB, city or town of birth, passport number, etc—and then there are entire pages he can skip since they pertain specifically to culturally-arranged marriages or people who are eligible to support a partnership-based application but are themselves not New Zealand citizens.
  • I need to upload documents proving that we live together in a “genuine and stable partnership,” such as a joint tenancy agreement, screenshots of our joint bank account, photos of mail we have both received at our address…stuff like that. That will be the very last part of the application I’ll do, since I want to collect as much of this proof as possible. (A Kiwi friend of mine, who has gone through the partner visa thing with her American parter, informed me the other day that you can go back in and keep adding stuff to your visa application once you’ve submitted it, which is amaaaaazing because that means I can continue to send them proof that we continue to live together in a “genuine and stable partnership”).
  • We need to ask ___ number of people who know us as a couple to write letters on our behalf testifying to our love for and commitment to one another. Technically this is not a requirement for the application; in fact, it’s not even listen on there. But I’ve done a great deal of research into this and it’s really, really good to have people testify on your behalf. Some websites recommend getting letters from “prominent members of your community, such as a priest or rabbi.” Guess we gotta get real religious in the next 4.5 weeks….

  • And lastly, I have to write the “Relationship Timeline.”

    Oh, the Relationship Timeline. The deceptively simple-sounding assignment which is in fact an absolute beast of a task, upon which Immigration will base a good portion of my case.

    From my research, it seems that Immigration purposely keeps the required “Relationship Timeline” vague in terms of what they’re looking for so that people who are trying to cheat the system don’t just go down and tick off all the boxes. Okay, fair enough, but like…..what do they want???

    I have spent so many hours of my life Googling this mysterious Relationship Timeline to find out what exactly they want to see.

    I have searched for posts from complete strangers on the internet who wrote Relationship Timelines that satisfied Immigration, and then picked through their posts/comment threads with a fine-toothed comb looking for any tips sprinkled in there.

    I have foraged around the websites of licensed immigration officers to see what they had to say about it.

    I have found subreddits where people in my shoes have asked what the hell Immigration wants to see, and then eagerly read through successful applicants’ responses while jotting down notes.

    Here is the general consensus: the “Relationship Timeline” is where you get to tell the story of your relationship in your own words. There’s no recommended length for this document, but absolutely everyone says the more you tell them, the better. Tell them everything. Send them everything. Do not make them have to contact you for more proof.

    I’ve screenshot the most thorough description of the Relationship Timeline I’ve found, which is from a licensed immigration website. You can click on the photos to enlarge them (those of you reading this on your phones may have to just zoom in; apologies). Grab a seat for this doozy of a read:

Yeaaaaaaaaaah. That’s A LOT.

Thanks to my years of partner-based NZ visa research, I’ve known about the existence of this “Relationship Timeline” for a while. And I knew it would be laborious putting it all together. But what I did not expect was that it would feel so emotional and…..well, if we’re being honest, so violating. Everyone (“everyone”) says to include screen shots of significant moments in your relationship, such as when you first told one another that you loved each other, and when you decided to become a committed couple. Show them how you got each other through tough times. Include lots and lots of photos of you and your partner on trips, out with friends, having fun. If your partner has kids, include photos of you/you and your partner with the kids. Etc etc etc etc etc.
“Just give them everything.“

About 85% of our relationship has been long-distance, meaning that we have nearly every one of our “significant milestones” in writing, which–I hate to say this–is convenient in terms of having to provide evidence. But going back through our four years of beautiful, private conversations for the sole purpose of cherry picking “the good stuff” for my application feels awful. I don’t want to send someone a screen shot of the first time we said “I love you.” I don’t want to send someone a cute picture of us on our first date. It feels like in order to prove the genuine depth of this immense love we have, I have to cheapen our story down to a bunch of juicy sound bites. I am not a particularly private person, but those moments belong to us.

Let me emphasize again that the visa application *does not* state that it requires any of this information. It simply says they want a “Relationship Timeline.” I could therefore just send them a simple list of dates and events. But I know that won’t be sufficient, and there’s just so damned much at stake here that I feel like I have no choice but to use these intimate, significant moments of our love story as a means to a end.

But that’s exactly how I have to think of it: a means to an end. The more you send them, the stronger your case, says the entirety of the internet. And I’d rather send them too much proof than not enough. And in this case, the “end” part of “a means to an end” is the first step in my getting to live here.

So rather than allowing this monumental assignment to make me feel like my privacy is being invaded, I’m choosing to look at it this way: if there’s one thing I’m good at—in all modesty—it’s telling a story, and we have a damned good story to tell. If they (allegedly) want everything, I’ll give them everything.

The first page of our Relationship Timeline is going to be the most bare-bones list of significant events and their corresponding dates, in case my application lands on the desk of someone with a short attention span who happens to be in a foul mood that day. As for the rest of it? I want it to be the best damned Relationship Timeline that person has ever read. I want them to be riveted, I want them to be moved to tears, I want them to laugh out loud (years ago I came across this obscure quote–attributed to a court jester–which I’ve never forgotten: “Make them laugh; they’ll have a harder time shooting you.”). I want them to forward it to their colleagues. I want them to tell their spouse about it over dinner that night. I want them to be rooting for us.

If they want a good story, they’ll get one.

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Phew; that was a close one….

I super appreciate that the FBI says in bold that just because I don’t have a record with them does not mean I am not a wanted felon on the state and/or local levels. Cheers, guys. Thanks for that.

My FBI background check came back clean! 🕵🏼

One of the things New Zealand Immigration requires you to submit with your visa application is a “police certificate,” which in the States means an “Identity History Summary” from the FBI, which you can order here. It cost $18 and took two weeks to process. You have to fill out and print off the form and mail it along with your fingerprints, which I had taken at my local police department The whole thing was thrilling and I would be lying to you if I said that I didn’t picture Clarice Starling or Fox Mulder opening my application.

Mulder and Scully making some calls about my rap sheet.
PS: This is literally the best photoshopping I’ve ever done.
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My timeline.

KareKare Falls

I’m making this its own post since a lot of people have asked me what my plans are. Here is a synopsis of the hopeful trajectory of my life for the next few years. I’m going to emphasize that none of this is guaranteed.

I land in Auckland on January 2, 2024. As an American, I’m allowed to stay for 90 days on a tourist visa.

Towards the end of those three months, I will apply for a Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa. The reason I’m not applying for the visa immediately is so that I can establish a paper trail (of sorts) to submit as evidence that my Kiwi partner and I are in a committed and lasting relationship. Stuff like opening a bank account together, adding my name to the lease, and receiving official mail at my NZ address.

When I submit my Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa application, it will be reviewed to ensure that it has all of the required documents, which takes about a week. Because I will be submitting it a few weeks before my 90-day Visitor Visa is set to expire, I need to stay on top of things to made sure my Interim Visa is issued before my Visitor Visa expires or else I will be here without a valid visa.

If my application is deemed satisfactory, I will be issued an Interim Visa, which is good for six months or until they make a decision, whichever comes first. In the unlikely event that they have not made a decision within six months, I can apply for an Interim Visa extension.

If I leave NZ while on my Interim Visa, it becomes null and void and I’d have to start all over again (which means paying the application fee all over again).

The turnaround time to process work visas is currently 11 weeks. So I’ll apply for the work visa in late March 2024 and should hear back from Immigration early to mid June 2024. If approved for a work visa, it’s good for 1-2 years depending on how long you’ve been living with your partner. For me, based on how long we will have lived together, my work visa would be good for one year.

Towards the end of my one-year work visa (which in theory would be around June 2025) I’ll apply for a Partner of a New Zealander Resident Visa, which lasts for two years. After that, I will apply for a Permanent Resident Visa. The difference between the two is that Resident Visas have travel conditions that only allow you to re-enter New Zealand as a resident for those two years, whereas a Permanent Resident Visa allows indefinite re-entry to New Zealand. If I am granted a Permanent Resident Visa it will, as the name suggests, allow me to live and work in NZ forever, which is my goal. 😊

After five years of being in NZ on the Permanent Resident Visa–so long as I have spent 240 days of each of those five years living in NZ–I am eligible to apply for Citizenship, which would give me a NZ passport. The US allows dual citizenship, so I will still legally be American and won’t have to surrender my passport.

As I mentioned at the top of this post, no part of this well-laid plan of mine is a guarantee. It all depends on whether or not Immigration NZ thinks I have a viable case. And it also depends on any unforeseen circumstances that may arise, like (god forbid) another pandemic. I do know that being very organized and very determined go a long way with immigration, and I’ve got organization and determination in spades. So fingers crossed.🤞🏼