Reputable Immigration Service for filing I-130 (CR1)

[sj0509 66]

Hi All,

 

I'm new to this forum, and this is my first question here.

 

I'm a US citizen, recently married. My wife is based in India, and I need to file for her I-130. I'm wondering if there are any reputable Immigration services that I could engage to assist with the filing of the I-130.

 

I know I could go about it on my own, but I'd rather not take a chance given the long wait times, and the delays that could happen if I were to miss anything. Also, if can be avoided, I'd prefer to use an Immigration service, rather than an Immigration Lawyer, whose charges are quite high.

 

So some suggestions from the experienced people on this forum would be highly appreciated.

 

Thanks.

 

[Roel 7,191]

You'd be surprised how many stories here are about how hiring a lawyer / service actually made the process slower for some people. Lawyers and immigration services make mistakes also btw. 

 

So yeah most of people will recommend you to do your research and file on your own. 

[geowrian 22,336]

A well informed individual is the best immigration service money can buy, and it's free. Even if you do end up going with a service, you still need to provide all the information, review all materials, read and understand all instructions, etc. Unless there are unusual circumstances, using a service is more likely to delay the process than speed it up (various talks back and forth, miscommunications, playing telephone with the information is just one more spot for it to get entered incorrectly, etc.).

 

In all honesty, there's no service I can recommend that will handle the case better than your concerned self. These forms may seem overwhelming at first, but they really are intended to be handled by regular individuals. There's nothing in them that you can't handle. The I-130 instructions has a checklist at the bottom, and there's a guide here: http://www.visajourney.com/content/i130guide1

 

Others have used services such as RapidVisa. They usually work out fine. Sometimes not so much.

[aratamorne 164]

My now wife and I used Rapidvisa for both the K-1 and AoS.  I have heard both positive and negative about them, but for us, we did not have any problems with them at all.  No issues during the process either time.  All they really do is double check that you packet looks complete, let you know if they think something is missing, or should be changed.  However if you do not include information that USCIS could later find out about you or if you forgot to mention something that could be detrimental to the process, using a service will not be able to ensure a smooth process.  Even if everything is perfect in your packets, there are no guarantees.

[Sunnyland 639]

You can use the immigration guides in this website and save yourself a couple hundreds/thousands $$$$. People here will help you. Unless you have issues in your case or red flags or you are super busy that can not do this then hire someone. We all take risks, it does not matter if you do it yourself or if you hire a lawyer. We prefer to make some little "mistakes" than paying somebody else a lot of money and they make the mistakes anyway.

When we started the K1 visa some years ago, a lawyer wanted to charge us between 3000 and 4000 dollars for it. My now husband found this great website and we saved ourselves that cost. That $$ we later used for a "honeymoon" in Disney. 

[WeGuyGal 1,052]

I had a lawyer too (before I found this site). Turns out I knew more through this site than that lawyer. The lawyer's office did not sort anything, dumped every document I gave into the package and delayed the mailing more than once. 

Suggest reading the guides and filing on your own. 

[sj0509 66]

Thank you all for the helpful replies.

 

I agree, based on my limited experience with an attorney this week, that their responses are quite slow, and it'll probably just add to the delay. I'll go over the I-130 form in detail this weekend, and come back with questions, if any.

 

And I do like Sunnyland's idea of saving that money, and using it towards our honeymoon

 

Thanks all.