Every immigration case involves several key parts, such as client intake, petition preparation, petition analysis, compliance management, petition submission, RFE responses, and case tracking. Each case’s ultimate goal is to obtain visa approval. Being an attorney, if you manage the entire lifecycle from client intake to petition building to petition submission easily, half of the work is done. However, it consumes a lot of time and opens the room for errors. Whereas technology is reducing the burden and streamlining the entire case lifecycle management. In this article, we will explain what immigration lifecycle management is and how technology automates it.
What is immigration lifecycle management?
Immigration lifecycle management involves several parts, such as client intake, petition building, petition analysis, document management, compliance management, petition submission, RFE response, and case status tracking. An attorney has to take care of each part diligently to achieve success. During this process, an attorney has to spend a lot of time scanning through multiple documents, draft various cover letters and support letters, and be attentive all the time so that no errors can be made.
However, technology is making the task easier for attorneys to take care of the entire life cycle management so that the attorneys’ burden is less and there is no scope for errors. This also reduces the time taken to build petitions, analyze them, and finally submit them to the USCIS.
What are the key aspects of immigration lifecycle management?
There are several key aspects of the immigration lifecycle management.
- Client Intake
At the beginning of the immigration case, the first step is client intake. This step is very crucial where case details are gathered, documents are collected, information is collected, and clients share the legitimate key information. Attorneys have to do it manually. Whereas the inclusion of technology makes it better by providing smart questionnaires that can be filled out by clients easily.
- Petition Building
Once case details are gathered, petition preparation starts to take place. Sometimes it takes weeks to a month to prepare a petition because of lengthy documents, long forms, and back-and-forth interaction with the client for key information. Technology lightens the burden of petition building and prepares it in minutes rather than weeks and months.
- Petition Analysis
Petition analysis is the process of analyzing the built petitions. Manually analyzing the petition takes time and leaves the chances of not identifying errors. Technology helps attorneys analyze the petitions, which saves a significant amount of time and catches errors.
- Document Management
Document management is an extensive task in immigration lifecycle management. Attorneys have to take care of each document, be it employee eligibility documents, marriage certificates, passports, I-94 records, or medical certificates. Manually taking care of documents is time-consuming and prone to errors. Immigration software provides a document management system that makes it easy to handle all the documents. Attorneys can retrieve the document with one click, whichever one they need.
- Compliance Management
Compliance management plays a significant role in immigration lifecycle management. Since the compliance of the case is crucial in the eyes of USCIS regulations, each immigration case has to be compliant from each perspective. If the outdated form is used or anything is not taken care of in terms of compliance, the case may lead to denial or RFE. On the other hand, technology helps in compliance management and automates the process, which is convenient for attorneys.
- Petition Submission
Once the petition is drafted, the petition submission is done either online or by mail. It has to be made sure that each document required is attached to the final submission; otherwise, you will receive an RFE. Technology like immigration software helps attorneys file the petitions online quickly. It also makes sure nothing is slipped while submitting the complete petitions.
- RFE Response
RFE Response is an important part of immigration lifecycle management because you have to submit the RFE response carefully. RFE is issued if the evidence is incomplete or if any supporting document is missing. You need to submit the required documents while responding RFE. Manually drafting the RFE response can be time-consuming and prone to errors. Whereas immigration software provides automated RFE response software. Using automated RFE response software, attorneys can build a USCIS-ready RFE response easily.
- Case Status Tracking
Once the petition is filed, the next step is to start tracking the case. One can track the case by visiting the USCIS case status online tool. By putting the receipt number, one can easily retrieve the case status. By using immigration software, you can automatically track the case status. It gives you peace of mind and keeps you up to date.
How does technology strengthen the immigration lifecycle management?
Technology strengthens the immigration lifecycle management in several ways. It helps attorneys save a significant amount of time, spot errors, reduce burdens, and enhance productivity.
- Time Savings
Technology enables attorneys draft the petitions faster, review them early, and post them to USCIS conveniently. This saves time for attorneys, which they can use in an advanced case strategy.
- Reduce Burden
Attorneys have to deal with lots of documentation. They have to check every minor detail of immigration petitions and the forms included in them. This put lot of pressure on them and leaves less scope for peace of mind. On the other hand, technology takes away the pressure and reduces the burden by automatically keeping the records of documents and handling them conveniently.
- Spot the Errors
Immigration software spots the errors in immigration petitions and carries out an analysis of immigration petitions. By spotting the errors early, the immigration petition is strengthened and leaves no room for RFEs.
- Enhance Productivity
Technology has made key advancements that have proved to be an opportunity for immigration law firms. Immigration software has automated the entire immigration lifecycle management from client intake to petition submission. This has led to improved performance for law firms and elevated their firm to the next level.
Conclusion
Immigration lifecycle management empowers attorneys to efficiently handle immigration cases. It enables them to strictly follow the process to start the client intake on time, build petitions, analyze them, and finally submit them to USCIS. Technology has played a key role as it has automated each process to enhance productivity and elevate the law firm to the next level.
