Every time I change jobs as an H1-B employee, I've to fill in the same ridiculous data with every law firms weird interface. I wish the US Digital Services would focus on streamlining forms and having auto-import from all the data they already have about me (e.g. automatically translate I-94 records to how much time I actually spent in the US, infer my past I-797 records automatically, have a one time education related upload since that obviously never changes). I realize there are certain valid reasons the agencies don't share data, but I find that hard to believe in an era of infinite surveillance, they can't use the surveilled data to at least make my life easier. I can see how the immigration law industry would never allow this, but I can hope.
The green card process is another minefield.
Also for Schengen countries, I've to apply for a visa every time I travel, and they make me list every time I visited the Schengen zone in the past 5 years, fill out the same application form across different countries, and get the same paystubs and letters from employers. Even a tool that could just machine read all the documentation a particular country requires for a specific visa, and just goes and pulls everything that can be pulled (bank statements, pay stubs, fill in travel dates based on the flight ticket emails in my inbox, hotel reservations and so on.) Just make it convenient for me to travel :)
Unfortunately any assumptions built into an immigration business are likely to be upended soon. I'd wait at least a year before trying to solve this problem because the regulatory environment could break your resulting startup.
SimpleLegal is not working on immigration. You may be thinking of Simplecitizen. Teleborder also tried. Along with many other non-YC companies. It's not a easy problem.
Well, the perseverant ones are having their time spent on bureaucracy, and living in a constant state of foreboding, decreasing the economic value they can add to the country :)
Every time I change jobs as an H1-B employee, I've to fill in the same ridiculous data with every law firms weird interface. I wish the US Digital Services would focus on streamlining forms and having auto-import from all the data they already have about me (e.g. automatically translate I-94 records to how much time I actually spent in the US, infer my past I-797 records automatically, have a one time education related upload since that obviously never changes). I realize there are certain valid reasons the agencies don't share data, but I find that hard to believe in an era of infinite surveillance, they can't use the surveilled data to at least make my life easier. I can see how the immigration law industry would never allow this, but I can hope.
The green card process is another minefield.
Also for Schengen countries, I've to apply for a visa every time I travel, and they make me list every time I visited the Schengen zone in the past 5 years, fill out the same application form across different countries, and get the same paystubs and letters from employers. Even a tool that could just machine read all the documentation a particular country requires for a specific visa, and just goes and pulls everything that can be pulled (bank statements, pay stubs, fill in travel dates based on the flight ticket emails in my inbox, hotel reservations and so on.) Just make it convenient for me to travel :)