Nearly every client that IINE serves across our three sites is in need of trustworthy and affordable assistance in adjusting their legal status in the U.S. IINE’s Legal Immigration Forms Service (LIFS) offers low-cost, high-quality support for a range of legal forms services in demand in the immigrant community, such as status adjustment, work authorization and family reunification application support.

IINE launched LIFS in spring 2018 with a talented staff of trained professionals who are accredited by the U.S. Department of Justice, and a supervising attorney with 15 years of immigration law experience. Since the initial launch of the program, the LIFS team has served more than 100 clients with quality, affordable services. The LIFS program currently works with immigrants in Boston, Lowell, and Manchester, NH.

What sets this program apart from others is the long-term commitment our team makes to each client through the entirety of their particular immigration legal forms process. We work directly with each client, keeping in close contact during every step of their case. As the largest resettlement agency in eastern Massachusetts, IINE offers the representation critical to helping immigrant and refugee clients realize their dreams of becoming contributing, active U.S. citizens entitled to the opportunities, benefits, and protections of this land.

Providing legal representation is more important than ever as policies under the current administration are making all aspects of the immigration process more challenging. The application for permanent residency, for example, has grown from 6 to 18 pages, and the form instructions are now 42 pages long. For nonnative-English speakers, increasingly complex applications can mean a daunting process. In addition, clients applying for permanent residency – who previously only needed to have their fingerprints recorded – will soon have to report for an interview at a government office. When they do, IINE legal staff will be with them.