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    Case Study Category: Section 61 Request

    Immigration New Zealand’s Consideration of Section 61 Request

    Adebiyi came to New Zealand from Nigeria in 2019 on a Student Visa with the dream of doing research work in science and making his parents proud. Adebiyi was happy with the way things were progressing and soon reached a stage where he needed to renew his visa, expiring in June 2021. Somehow Adebiyi formed an impression that the University he was studying was responsible for processing his visa.

    Unfortunately, this was not true. Studies & exams kept a sincere student like him busy. Unfortunately, by the time he realized the situation’s urgency, his visa had already expired, and his immigration status had become “unlawfully in New Zealand”.

    Confused and not knowing what to do, Adebiyi discussed his situation with his friend, urging him to consult Immigration Advisers New Zealand Limited, the best immigration advisers in New Zealand. He was lucky to immediately get an appointment with experienced and knowledgeable Senior License Immigration Adviser Vandana Rai.

    Vandana discussed the case with Adebiyi in great detail and advised him to make a Section 61 request. Vandana initially assessed the case and established that Adebiyi was a genuine student pursuing an advanced course of studies from a world-ranked university and was progressing well in his studies. However, from experience, Vandana knew that his academic credentials alone would not condone the mistake he had committed. The most challenging part was identifying the evidence that could satisfy INZ because the evidence on hand was negligible.

    The challenges faced were:

    • The University refused to issue a fee receipt to show the period covered by the fee paid.
    • Adebiyi’s passport was about to expire (without a valid passport, even if INZ wanted, they could not have granted a visa).
    • The New Zealand bank account statements did not show sufficient funds; thus, offshore bank account statements would have to be submitted.
    • The bank statements of onshore and offshore accounts had numerous unexplained deposits.

    The work included detailed brainstorming regarding what evidence could be provided for each transaction; and ensuring that the evidence is from neutral, verifiable, and credible sources. In addition, Vandana and her team undertook extensive research around the foreign remittance policies of Nigeria. Finally, she ensured that the supporting evidence was such that it proved beyond any doubt that the questioned transactions were genuine. After all, as explained earlier, in section 61 requests, nothing could be left to chance. Nothing!

    After many deliberations, Vandana successfully convinced the University to issue a distinct fee receipt for Adebiyi that mentioned the period covered by the fees paid. Also, she requested the Nigerian embassy to expedite the renewal of Adebiyi’s passport.

    Vandana also included a description of the significant value of Adebiyi’s research to New Zealand’s society in the application. Fortunately, Adebiyi received his new passport within time. Finally, Vandana submitted his section 61 request after a thorough scrutiny of the entire file.

    Outcome

    Due to the detailed representation covering each factor, Immigration New Zealand (INZ) was satisfied that Adebiyi had met all the assessment criteria, and there was nothing more to be clarified. Accordingly, INZ approved his section 61 request, and the client can now continue his research studies without having the stress of his immigration issues.

    (The names of clients have been changed to protect their privacy.)

    Approval Of Section 61 Request By Immigration New Zealand

    Rahat arrived in New Zealand to pursue his higher education. Upon completing his level 8 qualification, he enrolled at one of the New Zealand education providers to do a Master’s degree. He even got cross credits based on his previous qualification. He was pleased as being eligible for cross credits meant he had saved money and time both.

    He was told at the time of applying that he had to take one of the four compulsory subjects. However, he was surprised when he was compelled to enrol in different subjects to those that were initially promised to him.

    He made many attempts to convey to the relevant authorities in the college that he was enrolled in the wrong subjects and also sent numerous emails in this regard. However, all his requests went in vain. As time passed, he was left with no option but to study the subjects chosen for him by the education provider.

    He had all but given up when he received a mail from the education provider that they were ready to consider his request. Although his efforts yielded a positive outcome and he received confirmation from the college admitting the error made by them, they had taken too much time in doing so. Unfortunately, by the time he received this information, his visa had expired.

    He came to Immigration Advisers New Zealand Ltd with lost hope, not knowing what his future held for him. He was unlawful in New Zealand, albeit unintentionally and had no right to remain in New Zealand. Vandana Rai, Senior Licensed Immigration Adviser who met him, understood the gravity of his situation and his desperation to make his stay lawful. She along with her highly experienced team, presented his case for the consideration of the Immigration New Zealand Section 61 Request team with all the relevant facts.

    All communication between Rahat and the college was collected and collated. A large number of emails that were exchanged between the education provider and Rahat were perused and marked to be presented as part of the advocacy letter. The chronology of events was understood and issues highlighted which were required to be addressed to Immigration New Zealand by way of making a section 61 request.

    Due to the strong advocacy put up by the team of Immigration Advisers New Zealand Ltd Rahat’s Section 61 Request was accepted by the Immigration New Zealand.

    The positive outcome of the Section 61 Request, highlighted the importance of strong advocacy duly supported by irrefutable documentary evidence. It was another success for IANZ Ltd. Through hard work; the team managed to ensure that Rahat’s future was safe and that he was not deprived of realizing his long term goal in New Zealand.

    Being Unlawful to Resident Visa in Six Months

    Kalauni applied for her resident visa by herself, as she thought it would be easy and she was sure that she understood the requirements of Immigration New Zealand. However, things changed drastically when her application was returned by Immigration New Zealand due to failed lodgement, and meanwhile, her visa too expired rendering her unlawful.

    As she was contemplating her next course of action, she was faced with the very real possibility of having to back to her home country without her partner, with an uncertain future.

    Kalauni and her partner were lost, scared, and unsure of what future had in store for them. They did not have any clue on how to proceed further, and obviously, they did not want to live apart from each other.

    It was then that they came across Vandana Rai’s profile on Google, and after doing their research realized that she was an experienced and a reputed Licensed Immigration Adviser based in Auckland, New Zealand. Her credentials and experience had earned her many good reviews, and Kalauni and her partner felt confident in approaching her.

    Being unlawful gave Kalauni sleepless nights, as she thought that she would be deported, but Vandana after hearing her story, quickly made an assessment, checked the documents, and gave her the immigration advice that she needed.

    Vandana first submitted her Section 61 Request in order to make Kalauni’s stay lawful and then advised her to gather supporting documents in anticipation of the Resident Visa, which she was planning to lodge thereafter.

    Due to Vandana’s professional guidance, Kalauni got her Section 61 Request approved. Once the Section 61 request was approved Vandana quickly lodged Kalauni’s Resident Visa too. Although there were many additional documents that were required to make the case stronger and decision ready Kalauni provided all of those and ultimately got her residence Visa approved.

    It took only six months from the time her Section 61 request was approved to the time her Resident visa was granted.

    Today she is a confident resident of New Zealand, living happily with her partner. Immigration Advisers New Zealand wishes her all the very best in her life.

    Partnership Based Residence Visa Approved Directly Under Section 61

    Alice is originally from the UK and was in New Zealand on a Temporary Work Visa. While in New Zealand, she got into a relationship with John, who is a New Zealand citizen. John is a passionate sailor and lives on a boat. So, Alice too moved in with John on his boat, and they happily started living together.

    Alice then lodged her visa application for partnership-based Residence Visa on the basis of her partnership with John in Nov 2018 and started waiting for an outcome on the application that she had lodged.

    While waiting for a decision on a partnership-based Residence Visa, her temporary Work Visa expired, and she inadvertently became unlawful in New Zealand. This happened because Alice somehow assumed that that since her Residence Visa application was under process, her status remained lawful. It was only when she enquired about her visa application that Immigration New Zealand informed her that she had turned unlawful the day her Work Visa had expired.

    Alice, on getting to know about her unlawful status panicked, and realizing that she needed professional help, started looking for a Licensed Immigration Adviser who could help her. That’s when she came across Vandana Rai’s profile and found it quite impressive because of the excellent reviews and the years of experience that she had in the industry.

    Alice was stressed at this point in time and didn’t want her careless mistake to have an adverse impact on the outcome of her visa application, as well as her future. She fully realized that in a worst-case scenario, her family would be torn apart, and Alice would have to live away from her few months old baby. Alice decided to fix a meeting with Vandana, and was pleasantly surprised, and was relieved after discussing her case with Vandana, and happily put her case in her hands.

    Alice soon sent Vandana all the documents that were requested from her, which assisted Vandana in drafting a persuasive advocacy letter (Section 61 Request) in support of her circumstances that supported Alice’s request for being made lawful again.

    Alice’s advocacy proved to be extra challenging because the couple had been living on a boat and hence had minimal evidence of living together. The couple also had very little evidence of public recognition of the relationship, and financial interdependence between them. However, Vandana represented the case and advocated that Alice and John had been in a steady, committed, and genuine relationship, and highlighted the fact that they had just had a baby together a few months back.

    In the absence of conventional evidence, Vandana worked hard and put forward letters from the couple detailing the chronology of their relationship. The content of the letters outlined the couple’s relationship, views, and plan to spend lives together. Other evidence included a birth certificate of their child, photos, and evidence of their travels together along with letters supporting their relationship from family and friends.

    Vandana also underlined the exceptional circumstances that needed to be considered for Section 61 Request, these were related to the fact that the couple had recently been blessed with a baby (who is a New Zealand citizen), and wanted to live and bring up their child together. The child needed the love and care of both the parents and that separation of the family would not have been in the best interest of the child. The child would have been denied the human right to parental love and care. Another point that was mentioned in support of Alice’s application was that she had no intention of breaching any visa condition or staying unlawfully in the country. Her overall record and unblemished conduct confirmed that it was a genuine mistake.

    After the Section 61 Request was submitted, Alice was nervously waiting to hear from Immigration New Zealand. She got the good news of her Section 61 Request being approved in three weeks.

    Alice is now happily living in New Zealand on Johns’s boat and is bringing up her baby with her partner, John. We wish them all the luck.

    Disclaimer: Names of our clients have been changed to protect their privacy.

    Grant of Onshore Student Visa

    Simarjit Kaur, from Punjab, India was studying in New Zealand on a student visa. As the learning environment here was totally different from that of India, shefound it extremely hard to cope up with her studies.As a result, she failed in a few subjects. Her health also suffered due to the stress related issues, which affected her attendance. In addition to all of that certain other issues like lack of genuine funds, breaching of work rights, unexplained transactions she had made from her bank account and othersput her case in complicated case category.

    Therefore, when she applied for her student visa extension to complete her course, as expected, she was given a PPI letter by Immigration New Zealand. It was a five page letter, which clearly accentuated the seriousness of her matter. There were so many issues with her application that whosoever she interacted with, asked her to return to India.She and her parents were very disheartened, as she faced a an uncertain future.At that stage, she herself thought that it was impossible for her to get her visa.

    She had learnt about Vandana Rai from the success stories many of her fellow students had shared on Facebook and Google. Everyone had recommended that she is one person who is an expert at handling complicated cases. Therefore, as herlast resort, shetook an appointment withVandana Rai.After the first meeting itself, she became confident andassured that Vandana would be able to advocate her case in an effective and efficient manner, and Immigration New Zealand would be made aware of her side of the story as well.

    It took Vandanaa lot of hard work, and several client interactionsbefore she finalizedher advocacy draft.She explained each pointin detail covering all the individual concerns that Immigration New Zealand had raised. After reading the draft, Simarjit was so happy that her point of view had been convincingly put on paper. It was a 10-page letter which effectively covered every single concern that Immigration New Zealand had raised in the PPI letter, and no point was left.

    Finally, when she received the news of her visa approval, shecould not control her tears, and profusely Vandana Rai and her team for all that they had done for her in order to save her future in New Zealand.

    Presently, she is studying her course and is on the verge of completing her qualification. We wish her all the best for her future endeavours.

    Grant of Section 61 Request

    My name is Luiz Gustavo,and I am from Brazil. I came to New Zealand on student visa in September 2016 to study English (Level 3). I am a doctor by profession. After I finished my English studies, I wanted to apply for a student visa but I came across a good opportunity to do some volunteer work, which I thought I should do to gain New Zealand work experience.

    Therefore, I, myself, applied for a visitor visa to spend some time doing the volunteer work till my next study course started, I thought that this would be as easy as before. However, it wasn’t that easy as I got a letter from Immigration New Zealand (INZ) saying that they had concerns about my intentions and bonafides. I had difficulty in understanding the legalities due to my English language constraints. Although quite confused, I still wrote to them explaining my true intentions thinking that they would understand my view. I told immigration that if they have problem about my volunteer work, I could stop it.

    To my shock, my visa was declined, and I was rendered unlawful in New Zealand.

    I had nowhere to go and despite many visits to different lawyers and immigration advisers, I could not find help as everyone suggested me to return to my home country and apply from there. But my main reason to come here was to enhance my medicine career and I could not afford to go back to my country with nothing to show for my academic efforts.

    It was then I went on Google search and tried to connect with good immigration advisers in Auckland ,and to my luck I found Vandana Rai and Himanshu Rai of Immigration Advisers NZ Ltd. When I visited Vandana Rai’s office at 20 Hobson Street, her composed personality comforted my apprehensions. She listened to my problems and showed me the way forward. Her simple, calm and confident personality assured me, gave me confidence and made me feel less stressed.

    She took over my case and sought all the documents needed for my Section 61 request. She made a draft advocacy of my case read out to me, I was immediately confident and comforted that now immigration will understand my position. She scrutinised and analysed all my documents and assured me the high probability of a positive outcome.

    And how right she was! My Section 61 request was granted by the Immigration new Zealand.

    It was only due to her efforts, that I could be lawful again on my Student Visa. I am so happy with her services and would surely want anyone who is in difficult situation to visit her once. I assure you that all your problems will be taken care of in a highly reliable, professional, ethical and competent manner.

    Partnership Based Work Visa Granted

    I am Kyung Mi from South Korea and I became unlawful in New Zealand when my Partnership Based Temporary Entry Application that was being processed in Immigration, got declined.

    After careful consideration of my surrounding circumstances Vandana Rai lodged my Section 61 Request, which was granted by the Immigration in a matter of three weeks. Vandana advocated my case on the facts that I had become unlawful due to circumstances beyond my control, and that I was living in a genuine and stable relationship with my partner which enjoyed social recognition and had financial interdependence.

    As such I was given a General Visitor Visa to maintain my lawful status and also spend more time with my partner, explore New Zealand and practice English.

    I strongly recommend the services of New Zealand Immigration Advisers to all those who have become unlawful in New Zealand unintentionally and want to become lawful again.

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