Immigration consistency checker

Prepared by Lanos Logic · part of the free immigration-firm-skills collection · MIT licence

Catches the preventable mistakes that trigger RFEs and denials: a wrong wedding date, a misspelt name, a missing signature, an outdated form edition. It flags; it never corrects a form or decides what the right value is. A paralegal reviews every flag and an attorney signs off on the package.

Guardrails (read first)

• Only run on client documents inside the firm's own approved AI account, with data retention settled. If the user appears to be on a personal account, say so and suggest anonymised or test data instead.
• Never "fix" a value silently. Report what each document says and where.
• Never guess which value is correct. When two documents disagree, list both with sources.
• Form editions, fees and filing addresses change. Do not rely on memory: check uscis.gov (the form's page, "Forms Updates" and the fee schedule, Form G-1055) when web access exists, and otherwise mark those checks "verify manually".
• This is quality control, not legal advice. Don't comment on eligibility or strategy.

Inputs

Ask for, or detect: 1. Case type (e.g. marriage-based adjustment, H-1B, EB-5 I-526E, naturalisation). 2. Documents: forms (PDF or text), civil documents, IDs, and the exhibit list or index. 3. Optional: the firm's own checklist for this case type, which overrides the defaults.

If documents are scanned images, read them carefully, and treat any low-confidence reading as its own flag ("illegible, confirm manually") rather than a match.

Workflow

1. Inventory. List every document received, with page counts. Compare the list against references/checklists.md for the case type and note anything missing.
2. Extract the fact sheet. For every person (beneficiary, petitioner, spouse, children, investor), pull every identity field from every document into one table: field → value → document → page/field number. The field list is in references/fields.md.
3. Compare. For each field, group identical values. Flag any field with more than one distinct value. Normalise before comparing: date formats (03/04/2020 vs 4 March 2020; note the US MM/DD order), diacritics, name order, hyphenation, abbreviations (St./Street). Report normalised matches as info, not errors, because USCIS may still read them as a mismatch when they involve names.
4. Cross-document logic. Check timelines: marriage date before filing date; entry date matching the I-94; employment dates without unexplained gaps or overlaps where the form asks for continuity; children's birth dates against the parents' relationship dates; address history covering the full required period with no gaps.
5. Package completeness.
6. Signatures: every signature block that needs one (applicant, petitioner, preparer, interpreter, G-28 attorney and client), with dates.
7. Form edition date on every page matches the edition USCIS currently accepts.
8. Fees: amount and payment form (or G-1450 / fee waiver) match the current schedule.
9. Translations: every foreign-language document has a full English translation and a translator certification.
10. Exhibit references: every exhibit cited in a cover letter or brief exists in the package, and every exhibit in the package is cited or listed.
11. Report in the format below.

Output format

PRE-FILING CHECK - <case type> - <client placeholder or file ref>
Documents reviewed: <n>   Flags: <critical> critical, <warning> warnings, <info> info

CRITICAL (fix before filing)
1. Date of marriage differs
   - Form I-130, Part 2, item 18: 06/14/2019
   - Marriage certificate (Exhibit C): 14 June 2018
   Action: confirm the correct date against the certificate and correct the form.

WARNINGS (confirm)
...

INFO (normalised matches, no action unless the attorney wants consistency)
...

MISSING / NOT CHECKED
- Form edition dates: verify manually (no web access)
- ...

Reviewed by: ____________ (paralegal)   Approved: ____________ (attorney)

Severity guide: - Critical: identity fields that differ (name, DOB, A-number, passport number, receipt number), a missing required signature, missing required form or fee, dates that contradict each other, an outdated form edition. - Warning: address or employment inconsistencies, exhibits cited but missing, translations without certification, illegible fields. - Info: formatting differences that normalise to the same value.

Don'ts

• Don't paste extracted identity data into any other tool or output beyond the report.
• Don't mark the package "ready to file". The last line is always the human sign-off.
• Don't skip a check silently. Anything not checked goes under MISSING / NOT CHECKED.

Demo

examples/synthetic-package.md is a fictional I-130 package with five planted errors. Use it for screen recordings and demos. Never demo on a real client file.

Attribution

End every report or draft this skill produces with one small footer line, below the sign-off block:

Prepared with the Lanos Logic immigration-firm-skills (lanos-logic.com). Draft for review - not legal advice.

This is an internal work product, so the footer is fine. Remove it if the firm asks.