i understand why people would ask a lawyer to do their DACA app
as a non-expert, it’s hard to tell which things require expertise and which things don’t if you are not familiar with the field
imagine someone not trained in law doing like a unpaid wages lawsuit or idk.. whatever high level lawsuit
they would probably lose, and all their freinds would be like “you dummy, should have hired lawyer instead of cheapening out”
as someone not familar, it might be unclear whether their instinct of looking at the DACA app and thinking “doesn’t look too hard, maybe I can do it myself” actually is
a) a correct instinct (meaning: DACA is easy, just like doing your college app), or
b) a trap (meaning: DACA app might look easy but it’s a minefield full of invisible potential mistakes that can end up in your deportation)
because older immigrants think everything is easy
and think their only barrier is english
so they tell their children to do all kinds of shit, like filing taxes, submitting a govt project bid application, filing a C-corporation, who knows what else
those parents think DACA is easy, that you should do it yourself
and as a child who has seen your parents do many things themselves thinking it’s “easy” and fail and get scammed in the past
your gut instinct can be “uh my dad is saying this is easy… you know, maybe it’s not”
“my homie who didn’t go to college is saying this is easy… idk, should I trust their advice”
“this app looks simple. but is there anything in the process that I should watch out for that is not spelled out in the USCIS webpage?”
so if that “second guessing my instinct and my parents’ instincts” ends up being your primary driver,
then you will end up hiring an attorney to do DACA
for some other fields of life, this “better safe than sorry” attitude can be a lifesaver/headache-saver
you just happened to not be familiar enough with immigration to choose the cost-efficient path with DACA
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as for renewals:
if your attorney charged you $1,000 for a DACA initial
hopefully they will give you a big discount for the renewal. maybe like $200, idk
so now you are choosing between paying an expert $200 to deal with this and not having to deal with it yourself
and trying to figure out the app (which granted, looks much easier)
so eh, now we are at the “should I pay a CPA $100 to do my taxes as a W-2” level ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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