Fiance doesn't speak English very well yet...

[Karen_L 1]

Okay, THIS is getting odd -- my husband and I met in Florence too lol May I ask what your fiance' does is Florence? My husband was a student at the Universita' degli Studi di Firenze and he was there on a student visa.

Maybe you need to ask his name too... I hope it is not the same man!

I'm pretty sure it's NOT the same man, but... it could be one of my husband's friends. Florence is pretty small and he seemed to know every Albanian in the city lol.

[Kim 0]

Okay, THIS is getting odd -- my husband and I met in Florence too lol May I ask what your fiance' does is Florence? My husband was a student at the Universita' degli Studi di Firenze and he was there on a student visa.

Re: your fiance's Italian visa. Does he have an up-to-date Permesso di Soggiorno? I ask because my husband's visa had also expired, but since he was still matriculated in school and kept his Permesso di Soggiorno current, he was able to leave and reenter Italy numerous times without any problems. Ask your fiance' about his Permesso di Soggiorno. IF he is in Italy on an expired visa/out-of-date Permesso di Soggiorno, then yeah, he might have to go through Tirana instead because, believe me, the first thing they ask my husband in his interview is if he'd ever stayed anywhere illegally/out of status.

Hahaha, wow. Yeah, Florence has a high population of Albanians... strange, isn't it? If your user picture is of you and your husband, then no worries, it is not the same guy My fiance was in Florence to study as well, he moved there about six years ago. I'm not sure which university he was at (though I've got a hoodie from the University degli Studi di Firenze! Heh.) Now, since his student visa is expired, he is working as an auto mechanic. He likes working with cars a lot, so I figure once he's here and has learned english, he should be able to get a job with cars. That is, if some big company doesn't want him because after he's learned english, he'll know how to speak FOUR languages. So I'm thinking and hoping that he'd be able to get a good job for companies or corporations that could use people who speak multiple languages.

Anyways, I just called and asked him about the Permesso di Soggiorno, cause I hadn't thought of that, but he no longer has that, either. So I told him we'll probably just have to go through Tirana, which he seems okay with.

How did you meet your husband? Did you do a study abroad? That's how I met my fiance... we lived on the same street, literally about 30 seconds away, and kept running into each other. And he lived at his place on that street for about the same amount of time I was there for my semester... he moved in a few weeks before I got there, and moved out about a month after I left. So we were both in that space for just that short amount of time. And it's weird when I think about it, cause we could've easily not met... I was THIS close to going to Rome, but changed my mind at the last minute, and I could have easily gone any other semester. And same with him, he and his roommates could've ended up getting an apartment on the other side of the city, and we never would've met. So, coincidence or fate, I ask.

[/ramble]

[Creel 0]

Ok,

I met my fiance in Milano, Italy and he is from Albania. We are going through the Embassy in Albania as he was undocumented in Italy. All the directions come in Albanian from the Embassy and most of the forms are in English and Albanian so he should have no problems. It takes about a month for him to get packet three after the embassy receives his documents from NVC and about two months after you submit packet three for your appointment date. Before he leaves Italy he should get his Italian Police Certificate and if he every lived in Greece have him go to the Greek embassy when he gets to Albania and order it right away as it takes 1 -2 months to be delivered from the Greek Embassy to the American Embassy (they won't give it to your fiance).

We have our interview November 30 if the Greek police certificate arrives in time, otherwise they will cancel and reschedule. I'll let you know how that goes so you can prep.

Oh, and my fiance only speaks a little English too, but he is picking it up very fast.

[sercontigo 1]

Okay, THIS is getting odd -- my husband and I met in Florence too lol May I ask what your fiance' does is Florence? My husband was a student at the Universita' degli Studi di Firenze and he was there on a student visa.

Maybe you need to ask his name too... I hope it is not the same man!

[Kim 0]

Ok Creel, thanks! I'll definitely be interested in how the interview was... feel free to give me a PM or something afterwards. My fiance is learning english fast, too! I know he has a book he's been studying. I just talked to him on the phone today and he surprised me with a few new words he knows now.

After talking to my fiance, we are probably going to wait another couple of months before filing. Because he's going to go home to Albania for Christmas, he is going to apply for another visa to return to Italy because the work in Italy is better for him, and he doesn't want to wait half a year or so in Albania for this k-1 visa to come through. So we are probably going to wait for him to return to Italy, and then do the visa through the embassy in Florence.

I hate waiting But things will work out better this way. It'll give me time to save up some money as well.

[Yodrak 7]

Kim,

I'm always in favor of having a consultation (or several) with an attorney up front, to review the specific facts of the situation and the immigration process. With that background one can make an informed decision as to whether or not they want to retain an attorney to work with them on the case.

Without knowing what other issues might be significant in your situation I don't expect that your fiance's weak English is, in and of itself, an issue that would benefit from legal assistance.

If your fiance will be dealing with a consular section that is considered a high-fraud post that should be factored into your thinking.

Yodrak

Hi, my name is Kim, and I just posted this question over in the new members thread, but I thought it might be good to post it here too since I this hasn't come up in the recent threads...

My fiance and I haven't started the process yet; I'm just trying to get as much information as I can. My fiance is from Albania, and doesn't speak English very well yet. We talk in Italian to each other (I am conversational in it) so I'm not worried about the language gap putting off the person looking at our case. What I am worried about is that I wouldn't really be able to send him the forms he'd have to fill out, and a list of everything he'd have to do, since they'd be in English! He'd need them in Italian or Albanian. I'm also worried that I'd be able to tell him just over the phone of everything he'd have to do (since obviously I don't know Italian words for any legal terms that may come up). For these reasons I thought it may be best to get an immigration attorney. Now, I know that they don't speed up the case or anything like that, etc, but I just thought it might be easier to do it through a person who specializes in this and knows exactly what needs to be done. Because frankly, I look at the checklist of the whole process, and I'm intimidated :/

So I wanted to know what you guys thought? Would it be beneficial for me to do it through a lawyer, or would it be just as good doing it by myself (and saving a ton of money). Also, have any of you had a fiance that didn't speak English, and ran into problems with it? I'm kind of worried about that as well.

Thanks.

Edited November 17, 2006 by Yodrak

[rosyanne 0]

if you are worried, shot a 15 minutes video which you two talk to each other.

what this does is you can show them on your interview if they question the language problem.

[Alex+R 0]

OMG. This is so. freaking. weird. When I read the first post I was thinking "Has Karen L read this!?" and it just gets weirder.....

What's with Albanians and Italy!?