Immigration - old rules for UK immigrants?

Does anybody here happen to know where I can find out the actual situation for someone who arrived here before 1960, who is now being harassed for proof of citizenship/permanent residence?

When I attempted to contact the Department of Immigration, I was sent a form upon which I could ask a question if I included a cheque for a substantial sum of money, so I decided it could wait. However, it would simplify a number of things if I could discover if it is true that people who arrived before 1960 were automatically granted permanent residence and or citizenship, as I have been led to believe. Those who have told me that have forgotten what they had to do to obtain necessary proof in years past and of course since those times the automatic receptionist has been invented, making asking questions nigh on impossible!

well, my grandmother was granted citizenship automatically, but it wasn't pre '60, it was pre '48 when NZ ceased to be a british dominion and became a full independant country under the westminsiter statute. she had to prove she had been in NZ on or before a certain date in 1948. Dads birth certificate dated 1948 was enough proof.

Heck what a situation to be in. Arrived pre 1960? Been here for 50 years, working, paying taxes and now they decide to check up??

AFter 1948 immigrants had to apply for citizenship etc.. I am one of them.. and its a pain cos we didnt have passports to come to NZ but came out on an immigration paper which had the whole family on it.. a very precious document.. took me 18mths to get my NZ rights back in 78, and my sister is trying to do the same now... as one cant go to uni/poly do anything with out an ID to prove her right of abode etc.
she now has to get her citizenship, then apply for passport all so that she can get a bank acc or go to night classes.. AND she's been here since '53.
so get that important document that it was immigration with the magic number in the right hand top corner.. and go from there;)

Isla, I don't visit this forum britishexpats.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=83 but the person you know might be able to get some info etc from someone on there or at least be pointed in the right direction.

Isla

Beedee is right - my Mother came to NZ in 1950 and never applied for citizenship so everytime she went overseas had to make sure she had an 'NZ right of residence visa' in her UK passport.

Thank you all for your help! I figured there'd be some relevant experience in here.

quote:Originally posted by beedee

AFter 1948 immigrants had to apply for citizenship etc.. I am one of them.. and its a pain cos we didnt have passports to come to NZ but came out on an immigration paper which had the whole family on it.. a very precious document.. took me 18mths to get my NZ rights back in 78, and my sister is trying to do the same now... as one cant go to uni/poly do anything with out an ID to prove her right of abode etc.
she now has to get her citizenship, then apply for passport all so that she can get a bank acc or go to night classes.. AND she's been here since '53.
so get that important document that it was immigration with the magic number in the right hand top corner.. and go from there;)

This has initially arisen because of tertiary training requirements for registration as part of the Farmsafe and AH courses, about which I haven't really been concerned, just figured we'd sort it out over time. But now there's a more financially-affecting reason to sort it out and when the parents' passports, upon which the whole family travelled at the time, have long since disappeared, it's difficult to work out how to proceed. I'm also not sure how to access the old statutes, to which the more recent ones refer, to see what the actual situation would have been.

My mother was a later immigrant and had to get a renewed reentry permit whenever she left the country, until she got NZ citizenship to make it all easier. Another family member of the person concerned in this case, says she has a permanent right-to-abode certificate, which, as I understood her, is renewed with each passport issue.

There are school records from 1959, which prove earliest residence and the Army knew he was here and called him up for National Service, the Tax department seem to be able to find him wherever he is and so on. What a pain.

Yes Ive just signed up for the farmsafe course and had to take my passport along to prove I was worthy..
OK if you know the boat/plane and date of arrival that will help tremendously.. and then yes its fork out the cash to some hidden identity just so one can do normal things.. seems unfair.. and Id luv to meet the guy with all those bank accounts/passports etc to see how he did it!!!!! seeems you dont need a passport to be a visitor of the queens hotel.. at great cost to the taxpayer.
the other pondering thought I have is how the heck are these children who change names on their mothers memory and latest boyfriend are able to prove who they are.. Ive known 4 yrs olds to be on their 3rd christian name, 4th surname and even mom cant remember where they were born cos she has 5 others and cant remember which one he/she was.. and when a girl is given the name sonny, even that becomes debatable..

I came here as a kid in the early 70's. Dad was an "assisted immigrant" as he had a particulr trade/skill that was short in NZ, none of us kids or even mum had a passport, we all got in on one of those forms as dependants of Dad.

When I wanted to go overseas I got a UK/EU passport and then just took that along with the blue form we were listed on to a local immigration centre and got an endorsement in my passport of "permanant resident" and an indefinite "multiple re-entry visa".

The longest part of the whole process was waiting in the queue at the immigration centre (AKL) I got there about an hour before it opened and was still about the tenth in line.

Thanks Crusha, it's probably the permanent resident and multiple re-entry which the sister has. I'm just not entirely sure how to proceed without the original form or passport, but it's good to know what we're aiming for in preparation for dealing with the expected obstruction of the system! Or am I being too pessimistic about government departments?

Isla

Speaking from my own experience the people at Immigration were great, like you when I rang I got the eletronic receptionist. So when I happened to be in the city one day I walked into the office in Queen Street and spoke to one of the Officers on reception who told me exactly what I needed, gave me the right forms and info pack so that when I went back the second time it was very painless. Like I said before the longest part about the whole thing was the waiting in line.

As for the form I think they must have a copy of their own somewhere surely. I would imagine that to help them you would need to know your date of arrival, the name of the person you travelled with if you travelled on their "form" and as someone else said maybe the boat name or flight number. Good Luck

recently my workmates son, who had been overseas on a UK passport (father english) - he hadn't bothered to get an NZ passport as he wanted the right to work in the UK so just got UK passport, anyhow he returned home to find that he couldn't just enter the country - he had to buy a return ticket to the UK and was only given a couple of months visitors visa to enter as he didn't have a NZ passport. Well he wasn't planing to return to the UK, he has to get his NZ residency/passport sorted to be able to stay in the country he was born! Also can't get a job as he doesn't have a work visa! and of course used all his money to buy the return ticket to the UK so they would let him in.

My 2 children were born overseas (Germany and USA) but both have NZ citizenship by descent, which I got for them via the embassy in Washington (USA). When we returned to NZ 2 years ago to live, I had not bothered to get NZ passports for the boys because they had current US ones, and I was saving money! Despite showing their NZ citizenship certificates on arrival, they were only let in on 3 month visitor permits, and I was told to get it sorted out, or they would be overstayers! $200 dollars later, they were given permanent resident visas to live in their own country. They now have NZ passports too.
Having said all that, my husband has just been approved for permanent residence (he is American) and the immigration people were extremly helpful. We had a nightmare getting his fingerprint check from the FBI, and he was living here with an expired visa for a while, and the immigration department were great.

I wonder why I ran into so much initial obstruction when just trying to find out information? I'll give it another go when I've a spare couple of hours.