An analysis after seven years of living in New Zealand

I read that whole thing! What a concept.....Screening people to allow them into a country to LIVE? Who'd a thunk?

 

The USA does much the same thing for citizenship - I have known a number of people who took years to get their citizenship.

We also have a different situation here in general.

1) we have huge land borders

2) we have a LOT more people coming and going via the 'normal' channels of ingress and egress. most of the people who are here illegally are illegal because they overstayed their visa. most of the drugs/etc. do not come in across land borders by illegals walking across borders outside the normal border entry points - most of it comes in via the official entry points via trucks and planes. also, a lot comes in via boats along our coasts.

3) we have a huge ag job market that requires immigrant labor - most citizens will not do these jobs. a lot of crops went unharvested rotting in the fields and orchards because the crack down on immigration both cut down on the people coming here to do that work, and people leaving to go back to mexico.

#2 & #3 are issues I have had personal experience with.

I was raised on a farm and we hired anybody who would work in our fields. local citizens were mostly worthless - we often had to tell them to not come back. the immigrant labor worked hard because this was how they supported their families. when i became a young adult i worked some of these jobs myself and 99% of the people I worked with were hispanic, most likely illegals.

 

It's a long process and expensive for many to become a citizen. You pay a ridiculous amount for each form and they usually have the same information. From the outside, I didn't see any actual verification of the information given. My wife went through the process and I adopted my step daughter which eliminated most of the immigration work. I hope it's more than just a money grab. Judging by the San Bernardino killers, it seems a possibility.

Some people want a US passport just because it makes world travel much easier for business. I know of an African guy (not a prince) who buys cars cheap here and ships them around the world. But mostly to Africa.

 

Yes we do have a different situation here. I realize that. What I've seen first hand and have direct experience with is many, many people that live in my area that have come from other countries, that probably suck compared to the US. What they bring with them is the need for food, housing and medical, and it takes money they don't have to birth/school and feed the children they keep having.

 

When I was high school sports tough conditioned spent a summer at farm chores. Hayfield crew kicked my butt good in 10hr shifts. Then cherry picking was astonished to be outpicked 3:1 by grade school migrants.

 

The worst job I ever had in my life was spending a couple weeks working at the mushroom factory in Salem.

99% of the people working there were illegals from Mexico. The INS/et. al. (whatever they were called back then) would regularly raid the place - this was mid 70s. I quit to go cherry picking - shoveling the compost was back breaking work, but putting the feed straw/manure mix into the bins was hell - inside the building it was 150*F (they had temp gauges that showed this) and the steam coming off the mix smelled just like urine and your clothes would be saturated in it.

Everything since was a picnic by comparison.

 

Main export.. sheep.

Lol

 

More sheep than humans.

I like mutton.

 

When you flush the toilet over there, instead of the water rotating right, a snake or spider will jump out and bite your left nut.

 

The cost of ammo there!

Even when taking into account the exchange rate, it is easily twice what we pay here.

I don't think I would necessarily want to live there permanently - not with my kids continuing to live here. Plus it just bugs me that they have no Second Amendment/BOR - so as he said, things can easily change there. OTOH, things are changing here regardless.

I do plan to spend my winters (December to March) there for the weather. IIRC they have a 90 day temporary visiting visa that is easy to get. Also, if you show that you have sufficient income/resources/etc., that you won't be a drag on their social system, they will let you live there permanently. I can show that. Also, I turn 65 this year so they wouldn't let me work there - I wouldn't need to - especially if I sold everything I had here.

The last time I checked (decades ago), if you had $300K NZD, then they figured they would let you live there. We have something similar here, but it still takes a sponsor and a LOT more money (i.e., if you are a millionaire and say you want to start a business here, you can get a visa based on that).

 

Not quite. It's about 42%. Most of the new illegal immigrants do arrive by visa overstays as border security gets tighter, so you are correct that that is the trend.

AP FACT CHECK: Visa overstays outpace border crossings

 

Maybe in Ozland, but not in NZ. They have no snakes at all, and they only have one poisonous spider that is rare and only found one remote place in NZ. They do have birds that attack the sheep and your cars though (they like the weather striping for some reason).



They have a problem with feral farm animals because of abandoned farms - primarily hogs and cattle. They hunt feral cattle there. I am given to understand that the hunting there is good.

 

My wife and I visited N.Z. (North Island only) and found the people remarkably friendly, the land fantastically beautiful, but the politics...left.

Ugh...

We went there to visit a buddy and his family who left the states and his practise as a GP to migrate there to practise. NZ at the time was recruiting MD's from all over the world with great incentives. I met a bunch of South African docs there who left S.A. due to the violence. My bud as you might imagine is something of a liberal, but not the 'in your face kind', but the bland old fashioned kind.

Self defense there against criminal attack - don't do it. If you do, you're the criminal.

No place I'd want to live...

 

The law relating to self-defence
“Everyone is justified in using, in the defence of himself or another, such force as, in the circumstances as he believes them to be, it is reasonable to use.” (Section 48 of the Crimes Act 1961.)

This means you are allowed to defend yourself from attack, but use your common sense. The idea is to defend yourself, not to cause injury or get revenge. If you use unreasonable force, you are committing a crime.

Your first concern should always be for your own safety and that of others with you. Never take the law into your own hands or take unnecessary risks.

That said, they probably make it more difficult to defend yourself in court.

OTOH, in rural areas, they probably have much less crime than we do.

 

Illegal 'immigrants' into NZ? Where from? Have you noticed where it's located?

 

Right by guano island where they warehouse all the illegals?

 

What about growing season?

The soil? Good for farming?

Earthquakes - they have a lot of them.

While it is sort of strategically located, I don't think they really have much to worry about militarily.

 

When I worked in Brookings OR, my boss bought a big satellite dish and went to NZ to see if he could start cable TV companies there. It was unworkable at that time because there wasn't any orbiting broadcast sats pointed south... so he couldnt get enough signal. But he loved it there, the country very beautiful! Interesting to note that the typical residential electrical was a mess... 1930s type wiring equip and no code for installing in homes... just wires strung everywhere, with lots of splicing and lots of fuseboxes.

BTW, the people that I know that have worked and traveled outside the U.S. said there is typically no comparison to the lifestyle and amenities that we have here.