Nolan, our situation is as follows:
We've been waiting for 5 years now in the US just for Labour Certification, which is phase 1 of the "Green Card" or Permanent Residency procedure. THis place has enough red tape to make one cry. Any way, the laws were such that if you didn't have your GC after 6 years, you'd have to leave, stay out for a year, come back and start again. Then Pres. Bush changed that in 2002, so that if you had at least started the application before the end of your 5th year, you could then apply for annual extention of your temporary work visa after the 6th year. In September this year our work visa expired. Now in August we sent in the application for renewal (our 3rd annual renewal). At this time, my husband asked his employer if they would be willing to support us for filing a whole new application for GC under the new faster electronic system, and they said no, they're not in the "business of importing skills", so it would be best if my husband found another cpy (preferrably one of the big IT cpy's) that is more experienced in immigration processes, and who would be willing to sponsor us. They did however graciously pay for the renewal of our temporary visa, so we are still legal here until Sept 2007. Most cpy's though, want you to work for them for a year to 18 months before they will even consider sponsoring a GC. And of course we no longer have a year left. Our first option is to pray that his employer (of 6 years) will come to their senses and realise his true worth in their cpy, and reverse their decision. In which case we could have phase 1 and 2 approved before Sept 2007 (under new system). But if this doesn't work out, and we are not able to find another cpy that will sponsor us before the cut-off date, then our next option is to move to NZ. And yes, the main reason would be to be closer to my family. My hubby also has a close cousin there.
I have joined this board to get more of a feel for what it may cost us (not just $, but emotionally, etc.), to move and do the whole culture change thing AGAIN. It really is a far more huge decision to make this time round, as we now have two children (7 and 5), and we have established life insurance policies and other investments here, and we not sure whether we would have to have our policies paid out or stopped, and whether to pull investments, or whether we can keep all that running on this end while living in another country. My husband is over 40 already, and I'm nearing that benchmark myself, so re-investing in life-insurance and retirements becomes rather costly.
We know that IT positions are one the sort after skills in NZ, but one of my husband's reservations about moving to NZ is that it is a small economy, and there's not that much choice as to where to find work in his field, with the same level of income as here. There's probably just Auckland and surrounding area and Wellington (we're not interested in South Island as a destination to live). I know there are other cities, but one is not sure what IT opportunities there are. For me personally, I'm not so concerned with the money issue, as my hubby is. For me, it's a case of we've settled really nicely here with a great church (which took us YEARS to find), great group of friends made, which takes a while in a new country, and so I'm weighing the issue of whether it's worth it giving up the friends we've made here AGAIN (we had to do that in SA already), and starting from scratch again, with looking for a church, schools for the kids, and making friends again.
Ultimately, it's what is God's will, that really matters. And so we're praying that He will show us clearly. In the mean time, it does no harm to check out the process of moving to NZ and perhaps getting some ducks in a row, should this turn out to be the route we need to take.
As you can imagine, the immigration process for us has been a rather stressful one!
BTW, I overdosed on Milo instead!
