Can you make a video walking us through how to complete the I130 step-by-step? Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer practicing law throughout the United States at our offices in St. Louis, Missouri, San Diego, California, and Washington DC. We give away a lot of free content. We have tons of videos. We have tons of blog posts on our website. We have an email list that is growing and growing, where we send out emails four or five times a week, giving you as much information and immigration related news that we can, and we love giving away free content. Now, one of our YouTube subscribers asked us to create a video walking through how to complete an I130 petition for alien relative. Now, we of course have these internal videos for our team, but this is not the kind of thing that I would ever, ever do on our YouTube channel.
And you might notice too, in our Immigrant Home Facebook group, that we never helped people fill out forms online, and there's many reasons for this, but the main reason that I'm not going to do a video walking people through the I130 petition is that every case is different. And I would be doing a disservice if I were to teach you how to file an I130 petition on your own. I believe that most people need a lawyer to complete the I130 petition. And I think that's especially true if you're also filing for adjustment of status, based on that I130 petition. It would be a really bad idea for me to walk through a blank I130 and explain to people how to fill that out. And the reason for that is that I wouldn't know what you know about your case.
I saw this great diagram the other day, where there's times where there's things that I know and things that you know, and then there's things that I don't know and things that you don't know. And that dangerous spot is where you know things that I don't know. And if you're filling out the I130 based on a recording that I did, that's going to be dated the minute I make it, there's going to be information that you know about your case that I wouldn't know, and that would impact the application process. It might impact when you file it. It might be where you file. It might be whether you file. So I can't make a video walking you through a specific form. That would just be a really bad idea. That would be a bad idea for you. If you find such a video, I would not rely on it at all. There are a lot of people, notarios and non lawyers who are willing to help people fill out forms. But in my mind, I honestly believe that immigration lawyers are so much more than form fillers.
Filling out the forms takes us about 24 hours. When we get our intake form, we send it off and the forms come back and they're predominantly finished and they're predominantly complete, but that's just scratching the surface of what working with an immigration lawyer is like. We spot the issues. We try to tell what's going to happen in the future. We try to prevent any mistakes and prevent any future headaches for you. So just filling out the forms is not a video that I'm ever going to make. I hope that makes sense. If you have questions, give us a call 314-961-8200. You can email us [email protected].
Be sure to join us in our Facebook group, which is called Immigrant Home. We'd love to have you in there. We have over 5,000 members, and then of course we have our YouTube channel with hundreds of videos. Hope you subscribe to it, that you share out this video and others on social. And then don't forget on Tuesdays and Thursdays, you can find us live in our Facebook group and on the YouTube channel answering as many of your immigration law related questions as possible. Thanks a lot and have a great day.
