New Zealand law states you have to be in New Zealand for five years on an "unrestricted" visa before you can apply for citizenship. That is, a visa that allows you to stay indefinitely. I wrote about this before: A "resident" visa has an expiration date but you're allowed to live in New Zealand indefinitely; you just can't leave. (If you do, and the resident visa is expired, they won't let you back in.) It's kind of messed up.
Regardless, I got my resident visa on December 9, 2015. (I'd been in New Zealand for over a year before that but was on a tourist visa.) Today I was eligible to apply for citizenship, and I desperately wanted to give the government $470 for no benefit whatsoever. Seriously, unless I wanted to join the military or get top secret clearance*, there is no benefit to being a citizen over having a "permanent resident" visa. I still get to vote, I still get a pension**, I can still leave the country and return***, etc.
But in my desperate effort to be like Jason Bourne, I wanted another passport, so I applied. In the past I took my own passport photos and they were awful, so I decided that this time I'd get my passport photo taken professionally. It cost me $20 but was so worth it:
New Zealand law states you have to be in New Zealand for five years on an "unrestricted" visa before you can apply for citizenship. That is, a visa that allows you to stay indefinitely. I wrote about this before: A "resident" visa has an expiration date but you're allowed to live in New Zealand indefinitely, you just can't leave. (If the resident visa is expired, they won't let you back.) It's kind of messed up.
Regardless, I got my resident visa on December 9, 2015. (I'd been in New Zealand for over a year before that but was on a tourist visa.) Today I was eligible to apply for citizenship, and I desperately wanted to give the government $470 for no benefit whatsoever. Seriously, unless I wanted to join the military or get top secret clearance*, there is no benefit to being a citizen over having a "permanent resident" visa. I still get to vote, I still get a pension, etc.
But in my desperate effort to be like Jason Bourne, I wanted another passport, so I applied. In the past I took my own passport photos and they were awful, so I decided that this time I'd get my passport photo taken professionally. It cost me $20 but was so worth it:
Of course that looks awful, but contrast it with my other passport photos****:
When I finished my application, I got a friendly email that read:
Tēnā koe,
Thank you for applying for New Zealand citizenship. We will assess the application and tell you the outcome within 5 to 10 months.
After it's approved, I still have to schedule (and pay for) a
swearing-in ceremony, so I'll be lucky if this is completed within a
year.
* New Zealand is part of the "five eyes" alliance with the US, UK, Australia and Canada, so my US or UK citizenship would probably qualify me, anyway.
** The cheeky bastards make me take any other pensions first and then "deduct" that from my New Zealand pension, so once I've taken my US pension they will not likely have to pay me anything.
*** Even during the pandemic, I can leave New Zealand, but if I want to return then I have to spend two weeks in a "government quarantine facility" and pay $3,000 for the privilege. (The quarantine facilities are all 4-star or 5-star hotels and include three meals a day, so $3,000 for two weeks is actually heavily subsidized, but I still don't want to do it.)
**** In my last US passport photo, I wore a Hawaiian shirt. I thought it
was funny. Now it would mark me as a radical extremist.
***** That's far too many asterisks. What would my English teacher say...
