After two years of uncertainty, without a place to go, our family finally moved to Paraguay. The road to getting our Paraguayan residency has been one of persistence and patience.
An American Girl and a Haitian boy meet in Colombia
It all starts 3.5 years ago, when I met my now husband in university in Bogota, Colombia. He was a Haitian student who had moved to Colombia to get his undergraduate degree. I came as a study abroad student, planning on staying a semester and writing a research paper. We met in our international relations and politics class. After a date for cheap Chinese food at a local mall, and a very rainy date that ended with us seeking shelter in a bus station, we fell in love.
Things moved fast. I stayed in Colombia an extra semester, that turned into an extra year. I worked online and took my last classes remotely to finish my undergraduate degree from the US. We moved in together, I took the LSAT, applied for law school, and then got accepted into an online hybrid law program. Then I got pregnant…
Law School and Pregnancy
Our pregnancy was the greatest blessing that we could have received, but also a huge wake up call. My husband and I were on student visa in Colombia, with limited income, and no where to go after my husband graduated. We would need to find a place where he could work and where we could build a life.
My husbands Haitian passport complicated matters. Few countries would allow him to enter visa free. And we would need to find a place that would admit him and also give us residency.
We researched and researched. I spent many tearful nights stressed about the thought of being separated from my husband and worried about how we would ever make a future together.
Enter Paraguay
In February of 2024, after researching many options, I found what I was looking for. After researching countries in South America that offer easy residency processes, I found an agency in Paraguay that helps foreigners get residency with only a few documents.
I sent a long message to the agency about our situation. They were extremely helpful, sent me the list of required documents, and assured us that we would not have to pay them unless the residency was secured.
The next step now was to gather the required documents and apply for a Paraguayan visa for my husband. Then we could enter the country and apply for the residency with the same documents.
The Documents
The hardest part of our journey to Paraguay ensued.
Gathering documents from Haiti proved to be a nightmare. My husband could not travel back to the country to apply for them, so we had to go through an intermediary in the country. All the while, things got worse in Haiti, while gangs took over Port au Prince and all government work shut down.
The only way to get things moving and have a possibility of receiving your documents was to pay a “guy”. Who would take your documents, submit them, pick them up, then submit them for legalization. Both steps took an extremely long time.
While we waited for the documents to be completed, we had our son, got married, and applied for a US green card. All three of these events are stories in and of themselves.
After many frustrations, we finally received our documents and were able to apply for a Paraguayan visa for my husband in January of 2025. Our only problem now, was that the documents were nearly expired by the time the visa was issued. We would have to submit for a new round of documents before we could travel and start the residency process.
While we waited for the new round of documents, we began discussing with the Paraguayan residency agency if there was another option besides submitting again for the Haitian Police Report. This was the document that took the most time to receive.
At first, they believed that we would indeed need this document. However, after further discussion and confirmation by the Paraguayan authorities, they believed that we could use a Colombian Police report instead.
In June of 2025, we finally were able to travel to Paraguay. It was still a risk that they would ask for the Haitian police report for my husband, but we went ahead with the process anyway.
My son and I received our documents quickly. We then waited in Paraguay for my husbands documents to be legalized by the Paraguayan authorities. This took a few weeks, after which we were able to obtain my husbands residency.
We had finally reached an amazing goal and had a permanent home. It had been nearly a year and a half since we started the process, but our patience had paid off. Our family finally had a place to be together.
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