I'm a fairly recently naturalized US citizen, having immigrated from Canada to the US. I obtained a K-1 visa, adjusted status, removed conditions on my residency, and finally naturalized earlier this year.
This can all be done without a lawyer. I never had one and filled out all the forms myself.
A careful reading of the instructions, which accompany every USCIS form (often in a separate PDF, but listed on the same page), will give you all the information you need to know. If you need to know more information, you can read the USCIS Policy Manual[1], which is conveniently available to the public, and essentially tells you exactly the rules that a USCIS Immigration Officer will use when adjudicating your case.
USCIS also has a pretty good map of where you can start the whole process right on their home page[2], under Working in the US and Family.
That all said, my personal Swiss army knife of immigration information is and has always been the great VisaJourney[3], which is a forum of folks going through and who have gone through the immigration process helping each other out. Mostly, I've found that they are good for disarming the natural assumption I had that I was missing something in my applications, but their guides are great as well (though mostly restating information available in the USCIS form instructions).
I am... hesitant about this idea. It could be great for a lot of people! However, I feel that if you're going to be navigating the sometimes complicated waters of international immigration, you should understand what you're doing. Attempting to immigrate to the US without fully understanding the relevant immigration laws may very easily subject you to bars to entry that last more than a decade. These laws, in my opinion, are not hard to understand, and are, again, readily available from USCIS[4], so it's not like they're hidden. But saying the wrong thing, or misrepresenting yourself to an immigration officer in the mistaken assumption that it will better your case, can have disastrous consequences. Are you willing to bet the next decade or more of your life on a single website that may not necessarily back up its claims that your application is complete and without red flags?
Maybe I'm wrong and this startup will capture everything in an easy to understand format. But the whole thing makes me leery. There are a huge number of sites on the internet that purport to guarantee your application and give you special considerations, while essentially just charging you extra for forms you can download yourself for free. I've also heard many, many instances of simple immigration cases being screwed up by lawyers omitting or being late in submitting documentation for their clients, when by all rights they should have been able to file the paperwork themselves and saved thousands of dollars, but now have a visa / petition denial on their record that they will have to overcome the next time they file!
Good luck to them though. I hope if they do find a way to simplify their clients' applications, that USCIS can take a page from them and simplify the process on their website.
This can all be done without a lawyer. I never had one and filled out all the forms myself.
A careful reading of the instructions, which accompany every USCIS form (often in a separate PDF, but listed on the same page), will give you all the information you need to know. If you need to know more information, you can read the USCIS Policy Manual[1], which is conveniently available to the public, and essentially tells you exactly the rules that a USCIS Immigration Officer will use when adjudicating your case.
USCIS also has a pretty good map of where you can start the whole process right on their home page[2], under Working in the US and Family.
That all said, my personal Swiss army knife of immigration information is and has always been the great VisaJourney[3], which is a forum of folks going through and who have gone through the immigration process helping each other out. Mostly, I've found that they are good for disarming the natural assumption I had that I was missing something in my applications, but their guides are great as well (though mostly restating information available in the USCIS form instructions).
I am... hesitant about this idea. It could be great for a lot of people! However, I feel that if you're going to be navigating the sometimes complicated waters of international immigration, you should understand what you're doing. Attempting to immigrate to the US without fully understanding the relevant immigration laws may very easily subject you to bars to entry that last more than a decade. These laws, in my opinion, are not hard to understand, and are, again, readily available from USCIS[4], so it's not like they're hidden. But saying the wrong thing, or misrepresenting yourself to an immigration officer in the mistaken assumption that it will better your case, can have disastrous consequences. Are you willing to bet the next decade or more of your life on a single website that may not necessarily back up its claims that your application is complete and without red flags?
Maybe I'm wrong and this startup will capture everything in an easy to understand format. But the whole thing makes me leery. There are a huge number of sites on the internet that purport to guarantee your application and give you special considerations, while essentially just charging you extra for forms you can download yourself for free. I've also heard many, many instances of simple immigration cases being screwed up by lawyers omitting or being late in submitting documentation for their clients, when by all rights they should have been able to file the paperwork themselves and saved thousands of dollars, but now have a visa / petition denial on their record that they will have to overcome the next time they file!
Good luck to them though. I hope if they do find a way to simplify their clients' applications, that USCIS can take a page from them and simplify the process on their website.
1. https://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual.html
2. https://www.uscis.gov/
3. http://www.visajourney.com/
4. https://www.uscis.gov/laws/immigration-and-nationality-act