Two Americans emigrate to New Zealand from Colorado,
USA.
We talk about
our life in Nelson, New Zealand.
After the Christmas and New Years holiday, early 2006 brought word from NZI and the London review office that applications received prior to 21 December—the date of the Skilled Migrant rules changes—would be reviewed under the existing rules at the time of application. Applications received from 21 December forward would be reviewed under the new rules. Essentially our application would move forward as expected. Had we delayed filling out our materials or in some way submitted everything only 2 months later, we would have been in big trouble.
Our immigration officer contacted Angela early in January 2006 to say she had begun her initial review and that she would be in contact with any questions. Finally, some action and progress. Plus a real person to talk to, someone to pester!! After two weeks, the immigration officer emailed Angela to say that everything appeared to be in order with the application, she was ready to schedule a telephone interview (which we knew from others to be the final step in the process) except for one thing: she would need Don’s chest x-ray, could we please send it?
Angela's jaw dropped; we had included the actual film in our package to London (as directed), it was the only copy, did you not get it? Angela called London about 5 minutes after sending that jaw-dropped email to say the exact same thing, in a panic. A few hours later, the immigration officer confirmed she found the film, it had been lost in the mail opening process and filed under Don's name, although Angela was the applicant. But it was in hand. Now, it had to be sent off to their internal physician for review, by regulation. This would take about two weeks.
TWO MORE WEEKS?! This could have been done during the rest of the review, but now there was another delay. How we managed to avoid having heart attacks, we’ll never know.
While waiting for the review of the chest x-ray, Don was notified at work that he was voted to receive an all-expenses paid trip for both of us to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico as reward for his work. Wow, a free vacation! That was the good news. On the other hand, Angela was the fortunate one receiving the bad news: she’d put off having jury duty service the prior fall and was absolutely required to show up the week before the trip to Mexico. How could the timing keep getting worse?
back to Part 7: The real scare | Immigration home | on to Part 9: 15 February 2006
