Hello all,

In August I sent the I-129F package and my case is still pending. I have only received the NOA1. Is it normal for it to take this long. Also my fiance has all his documents already like the birth certificate and the baptism certificate. Do these documents have to be translated to English???? When going to Bogota should he take a lot of pictures and emails and chats and phone bills pretty much all the evidence that we keep in touch and speak everyday?
This process is very stressful especially because my case is still pending. please if someone has information onmy questions can you please write back. thank you

I am realitively new here, but I think all documents need to be submitted in English. The best forum for you to inquire is in "Colombia Club" started by Peter of Miami. The folks there have much more knowledge and are very helpful in all matters concerning Colombia. Best of luck to you.

I highly recommend completing the forms in English.

Mucha suerte

No, the documents he takes to the embassy like his birth certificate, baptism certificate, police certificate and migratory movement certificate do not have to be translated since everybody at the embassy is fluent in Spanish.

I do recommend that he gets his birth certificate translated in Colombia to bring to the US in case he needs it. It's a lot less expensive to do it there and he can get several copies. Also, these translations DO NOT have to be apostilled. The translator will say they have to be but it's just a scam to get more money. Just get the simple translations and that's it.

Diana

Ditto - for documents presented at the Consulate, Spanish is ok. However, like Mononoke said, you're better off getting all your official documents translated anyway, in case you need them once in the US.
As for the pictures.... snap away my friend: pictures are evidence of ongoing relationship - NOT the only evidence, but they do help. Besides, they're nice.

Thank you all for your response. It has helped me a lot. I also have been saving my conversations on msn. Do they actually read everything??? and if there are private things in my chat can i black that out???

We took pictures, 2 e-mails per month, and 2 chat conversations per month, along with copies of calling cards that I could get online, boarding passes, etc. The CO looked at almost every picture and read most of our e-mails and chats. I only printed out 1 page of each chat because we had been doing it for over 2 years and that would've been a lot of wasted paper. But yeah, they do read the content some times, but what can you do?

Diana

I just printed the email inbox highlighting all the emails and chat histories to make a 1000 page book a 20 page ordeal.

Correction on my recommendation- I did not mean English translations but rather English forms for the embassy. But honestly the ones that allow Spanish are ok either way.