The Importance of Legal Advice in "Easy" Immigration cases
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Why bother with a lawyer? All the instructions are online...
In my 20+ years practicing immigration law, I have noticed some interesting trends. One that has caught my attention recently is how many people are requesting consultations in my Silicon Valley office, looking for help after they’ve tried to DIY their cases with the USCIS (file their cases on their own, without a lawyer) and things have gone wrong. Sometimes folks come in asking for help responding to a Notice of Intent to Deny or Request for Evidence. Sometimes their cases have already been denied and they’re hoping to be able to re-file.
I think at least part of the reason for this increase in people filing their own cases when they don’t have the know-how is the fact that USCIS has pushed to make its processes more accessible to the public. We can now file many types of cases online, all the forms and instructions are readily available on the USCIS website, etc. In some ways this accessibility is great. But it can also be dangerous.
U.S immigration law is incredibly complicated and constantly changing. Our modern-day immigration system is based on a set of laws created in the 1950’s--laws that are being continuously modified and affected by federal and administrative case law, agency regulations and memos, and which are interpreted differently by different government officials. Frequently a case that seems like it should be straightforward can get completely bungled if you don’t know what to look out for, or if you were unaware of a piece of the legal puzzle, or if you are unlucky enough to get an adjudicator who misinterprets the law.
This increased public access that USCIS has granted untrained individuals to an oftentimes messy legal process is also potentially catastrophic when you think about the tremendous impact that immigration can have on people’s lives. Immigration law determines where and how individuals can live and work, and literally unites or divides families.
My basic suggestion, while sounding basic, could not be emphasized more: talk to an immigration lawyer before you file anything with USCIS. While there are many people who do successfully DIY immigration cases, the stakes and risks are high. Too often I see people who thought they were walking into a simple process and ended up in a mess that lasts months or even years, sometimes separating families or ending with people being forced to leave the United States. I have even seen straightforward cases based on marriage to a US citizen (cases that we consider simple at my firm) end in divorce--at least partly because of the stress of a botched immigration case. If you think about it, it’s not that hard to imagine. I mean, living in the same country as your spouse, or living together in the country you choose to live in, has a pretty big impact on a couple.