Anyone Know A Good Immigration Consultant

[Ceviche]

I met Lorena in 2008 and she gave me lot of wrong information about citizenship procedures. I noticed that much of the same information is still posted on their website on 2015! Because of her wrong info, I became a citizen 2 years later than I could have!

No doubt Lorena is a highly charamatic woman and talks very well. But I have a reason to believe that they are more into making money out of innocent clients rather than showing them the easiest, fairest and the cheapest way.

One thing I will say in their support, if you are not interested in citizenship and if you do not qualify any residency, Lorena does have one or two aces up her sleeve which I rather not discuss here but feel free to contact Lorena.

However, if you are interested in being a citizen or do qualify for residency, Lorena is the last person anyone should be contacting.

Period!

 

[ElCordobés]

I think that someone (elcordobes?) recently posted that he wasn't subjected to the language test (at least not before the judge).

Correct, there was never a formal language evaluation in either of our cases in Cordoba. We have experience with two of the three courts. However, we might have been informally evaluated since I represented us and had many interactions in person and over the phone with the clerks (I am not fluent...proficient, perhaps). That said, my wife said only a few words to a clerk who accepted our initial papers. She never spoke to the clerk who was in charge of the case until she received her carta on the day of the oath (her only official visit to the court after having dropped off the original papers the we initiated the process). So who knows.

To be sure, each juzgado (court) does their own variation to get the final result....our timelines were different, the order things were requested was different, they did an Interpol check for my wife, not in mine as far as I know.

No FBI checks for either of us. We've been in Argentina since 2010 so perhaps that's the reason, but we had only been official residents for 9 months when we started citizenship. Note: we have an Argentine child so we could skip the 2-year rule. The courts used our original entry dates more than two years before we residents...at least with respect to the edicts published in the paper advising we were seeking citizenship. No hard and fast rules, frankly.

We only met our judges in the oath ceremonies. In both cases, they made special quizzical notes about our being estadounidenses.

ARCA: This stuff above make no sense to me. On the whole, not particularly accurate in my experience.

 

[nicoenarg]

Well I'm assuming that's in Cordoba (from ElCordobes?). In my case I had the language test (EDIT: with the clerk, not the judge) although it was nothing too complicated. They tested to make sure I understood what they were saying, that I could reply fairly well and that I could read and write Spanish.

Unlike ElCordobes's case, mine not only asked for police reports from my country of citizenship and former residence but that is exactly what has had the case on hold for quite a while now. So it depends from court to court.

In any case, if you are unsure of even the slightest thing I would recommend hiring a lawyer because if not for my lawyer I would have been completely lost and without any choice but to withdraw the application.

 

[Bajo_cero2]

Well, there are like 50 different judges.
My assert is about 28 federal judges. 25 of then require it.

 

[datson2000]

Ok, so I've suggested ARCA a few times now and a lot of people respond to this suggestion that it's a waste of money (but kindly caveat that it's a persons personal choice). I knew the cost before I moved to BA and therefore had saved for it when not reliant on earning pesos. I have nothing to gain by recommending them other than the fact that I've just finished the residency process with them and they accomplished a complicated Rentista case for me. I have highlighted some facts from my situation that reflects my personal experience.

*I liaised with Lorena for over 2 years from overseas discussing various options for the Rentista (as mentioned it was not a straightforward application). She gave me her time not only during the week but numerous weekends. I was not charged a dime the entire time for advice.

*When a suitable approach became apparent, Lorena routinely liaised with my accountant and lawyer offshore, ensuring all instructions were clear (and in English). This covered not only financial requirements for my business, but foreign commonwealth office and criminal background checks offshore.

*Once all offshore documents were signed/notarised they were returned to Lorena who then built a robust petition for me including translations and certification of all offshore documentation. When there was a tracking problem with the parcel at EZE she personally handled it.

*Lorena personally attended Migrations with me 3 times, each time getting me to literally the front of the queue, every time, in some cases bypassing a hundred or more people. She knows the people who work at migrations personally.

*My DNI was posted in record time as my paperwork was immaculate. I was in Europe at the time and my DNI was missed for collection. When I returned she went with me personally to pick it up from Vital Records. After this she sent me my CUIT.

*Lorena provided all instructions and support required for opening a bank account. She will be attending personally to ensure it is set up successfully at the branch.

This is definitely not the cheap option, however the amount paid was easily outweighed by the service and peace of mind provided. People may still choose to pick this apart but hopefully it can help one or two people going through the stress of relocation.

 

[haskellbob]

Wow. I had assumed, wrongly, that replies to my question would be made known to me by e-mail. WRONG! So I hadn't seen them until today. Sorry!

As far as Steve the recommended consultant is concerned, can the poster give me data on how to contact him? I will also try the other person, the abogada.

As far as my Spanish, it is excellent, although Argentine Spanish and Mexican Spanish are two different cups of mate...

 

[Fangar]

SteveinBAs, the recommended consultant, is a very helpful and knowledgeable member of this group who lives in a fortified enclave in an undisclosed location somewhere on the Pampas. He is good at answering questions on this forum, but I doubt if you have enough money to lure him into the big city for a consultation.

 

[el_expatriado]

Lots of people like to talk about how there are cheaper options to get visas rather than Lorena (ARCA), but no one is going to give you the same service. If you are just recently arriving to Argentina unless you want to learn Spanish and fight bureaucracy for months on end, there is no better option.

Its like a traveling analogy. If you are going from Buenos Aires to Misiones, you can A. take a plane B. take a bus or C. walk it.

Lorena is A. She'll get you to your objective in a short amount of time with the least amount of stress. If you use someone else its like taking a bus. It'll take you longer and you'll have more frustrations, but you don't pay as much. And if you do it yourself, that's like walking it. Its free and eventually you'll get there if you stick to it, but chances are you'll probably give up halfway due to exhaustion and/or frustration.

Saludos!

 

[Ceviche]

Lots of people like to talk about how there are cheaper options to get visas rather than Lorena (ARCA), but no one is going to give you the same service. If you are just recently arriving to Argentina unless you want to learn Spanish and fight bureaucracy for months on end, there is no better option.

Its like a traveling analogy. If you are going from Buenos Aires to Misiones, you can A. take a plane B. take a bus or C. walk it.

Lorena is A. She'll get you to your objective in a short amount of time with the least amount of stress. If you use someone else its like taking a bus. It'll take you longer and you'll have more frustrations, but you don't pay as much. And if you do it yourself, that's like walking it. Its free and eventually you'll get there if you stick to it, but chances are you'll probably give up halfway due to exhaustion and/or frustration.

Saludos!

Lorena is good in residency. But they still ..STILL..TILL TODAY...advise clients that you need 5 yrs to be a citizen.

If you are so close to Lorena, better call her up and tell her to stop misguiding poor people.

--

I became a citizen 2 years late, because of her misguidance,

 

[ben]

Lots of people like to talk about how there are cheaper options to get visas rather than Lorena (ARCA), but no one is going to give you the same service. If you are just recently arriving to Argentina unless you want to learn Spanish and fight bureaucracy for months on end, there is no better option.

Its like a traveling analogy. If you are going from Buenos Aires to Misiones, you can A. take a plane B. take a bus or C. walk it.

Lorena is A. She'll get you to your objective in a short amount of time with the least amount of stress. If you use someone else its like taking a bus. It'll take you longer and you'll have more frustrations, but you don't pay as much. And if you do it yourself, that's like walking it. Its free and eventually you'll get there if you stick to it, but chances are you'll probably give up halfway due to exhaustion and/or frustration.

Saludos!

Sounds a bit overdone. Maybe my case isn't representative - I had a clear path to permanent residency based on family - but my 'walking it' wasn't aggravating at all. And the parts that were aggravating, I doubt could have been helped by anyone.

Here's what was easy:
1) Getting from a couple of friends a list of what was needed.
2) Corroborating that list online (available in Spanish and government Spanglish);
3) Having gotten everything together, the trip to Migraciones where I presented everything, paid, and got my precaria.

Here's what was not easy:
1) Getting all the papers together, having someone take them for me - while I was here - to the relevant offices for authentication, and then legalization by the Argentine consulate (the procedure in countries that don't do the Apostille). Don't think anyone could help with that.
2) Finding a translator. The complete list of licensed translators is available online, searchable by barrio. Some numbers are dead, most aren't. Why, then, do I call this 'not easy'? Dunno. It felt like a pain.
I suppose this is the 'walking' part of which facilitators are supposed to rid you. But being that a big part of my translator hunt was paying 20-30 pesos less, a fixer would not have been too helpful here.
3) Missing the delivery of my DNI, and having to visit 2 offices 3 times to pick it up. The third and critical time, for an entire morning. Don't think anyone could have helped with that either.

Again, my route to residency was a straightforward one, but anyone with some attention to detail can get this done without too much headache.

Regarding citizenship, I know nothing. The only thing that I'm curious about - and that would permanently remove any remote thought of doing such a thing:
Absent an agreement regarding dual citizenship, do you have to furnish solid proof of relinquishing your former citizenship? Does it matter whether you're represented by the right attorney in this regard?
Tangentially, I understand that Argentina and the US had such an agreement, but it is no longer in force. Is this correct?