Film NZ sent out the following commentary on a change to
Immigration NZ's administration of its visa scheme in Los
Angeles.
Immigration New Zealand has made changes to visa processing in
Los Angeles, bringing the city in line with changes made by
Immigration NZ in its other centres around the world, and in
preparation for a shift to electronic processing. The biggest
change is that a third party agency will now undertake the
administration of visa applications, and that there will be a
charge for this service per visa.
Some of these changes are linked to Immigration NZ's global
policy and are non-negotiable. Film New Zealand has reinforced to
Immigration the importance of LA to the New Zealand screen
industry, and in particular, having effective relationship
management - an experienced person - at the LA end when issues
arise. Immigration NZ advises these current changes do not remove
Cherry Hankins in LA, and in fact will free her up from manual form
processing. Carl Andrews will remain the "go to" desk in New
Zealand.
Immigration has agreed to make sure that if problems arise in
the short-term, they will respond - so if you hit any specific
complexities as a result of the changes, please contact Bradley
Reid bradley.reid@dol.govt.nz and cc gisella@filmnz.com