Case Studies

Mr L’s Partner of a New Zealander resident visa application was declined by Immigration New Zealand because he had withheld relevant information on his application that he had been deported from a European country.

At the time he approached Visa Matters Ltd, Mr L was in New Zealand without any visa, and Immigration New Zealand was threatening to deport him. Visa Matters Ltd identified that Mr L was ineligible to be approved a visa unless he was granted a special direction by the Associate Minister of Immigration.

Mrs D came to New Zealand on visitor visas with her two children to join her husband, Mr N, who is a New Zealand resident. After arriving in New Zealand, Mrs D applied for a Partner of a New Zealander work visa. She and her husband were interviewed by Immigration New Zealand.

During the interview, Mr N told INZ that he had never had a relationship with another woman since he came to New Zealand. However, he was unaware that INZ had received information from the New Zealand Police that a Ms K had complained about Mr N in 2018,
at which time they were in a “casual” relationship.

After their interviews, INZ sent a “PPI” letter to Mrs D, stating that false information had been provided in Mr N’s interview, and that Mrs D’s application did not meet character requirements for this reason.

Mr W’s resident visa was also declined by INZ on character grounds. He had committed three serious offences while under the influence of alcohol, and his application did not meet character requirements to be approved residence.

INZ’s decline letter informed Mr W that he had the right of appeal to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal, but Visa Matters identified that INZ’s advice was incorrect – because of the serious nature of one of Mr W’s convictions, he did not have the right of appeal to the IPT.

Instead, Visa Matters Ltd acted for Mr W in requesting the Associate Minister of Immigration to approve

Mrs J received a “letter of concern” (also known as a “potentially prejudicial information” or PPI letter) from Immigration New Zealand after she failed to declare on her visitor visa application form that she had been imprisoned in her home country for a drink-driving conviction.

Visa Matters Ltd made submissions on Mrs J’s behalf and provided supporting evidence showing that she did not deliberately withhold information about her imprisonment from INZ. Thanks to these submissions, INZ approved a character waiver and approved Mrs J’s visitor visa.

Mr X worked in breach of his visa conditions for nearly one year and received a PPI letter from INZ about this. We advised Mr X to stop working in breach of his visa conditions.

We then made submissions to INZ to prove that he was a bona fide applicant who had not deliberately breached his visa conditions.

INZ accepted our submissions and approved Mr X a further Essential Skills work visa. He was very relieved because his employer was about to terminate his employment within 24 hours.

Ms A held an Essential Skills work visa which required her to work for a specific employer in a specific location.

She finished working for that employer, but continued to hold her Essential Skills work visa, which meant that she breached her visa conditions for several months.

After taking Ms A on as a client, we obtained her permission to disclose to INZ that she was no longer working for her previous employer, and to inform INZ that she would shortly lodge a further Essential Skills application.