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Immigration help without getting cheated: who is allowed to help, free forms, your case and your court date
For anyone with immigration papers to deal with, and the family and friends beside them. This page does not tell you what you qualify for: nobody honest can do that from a web page. It passes on, by name and date, what the Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Department of Justice’s immigration courts and USAGov say about the part that comes first: who is authorized to give immigration advice, where the free and low-cost lists are, how the scams work, how to check a case or a court date, how to find someone who was detained, and where to report being cheated. It puts the questions you pick on one sheet, and prints a card to keep.
Before anything else
- Only two kinds of people may give you immigration legal advice. The FTC says: only an attorney, or an accredited representative working for an organization recognized by the U.S. Department of Justice.
- A notario is not a lawyer here. USCIS says a notario público is not authorized to provide you with any legal services related to immigration.
- The forms are free. The FTC says: don’t pay for immigration forms; the official forms from USCIS are free. Filing fees, paid to the government when you submit, are a separate thing.
- Never sign a blank form, and keep your originals. The FTC says not to let a notario or anyone else keep your original documents.
- USCIS says it will never ask you to pay fees to a person on the phone or by email, and does not take gift cards or payment apps for immigration fees.
- A hearing in immigration court? The Department of Justice’s automated line, 1-800-898-7180, gives the next date, time and place at any hour, in English and Spanish. You need the A-number.
- Reporting a scam will not count against you. USCIS says reporting scams will not affect your immigration application or petition.
- If the weight turns into thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 at any hour. In danger right now? Call 911.
- This page saves nothing. There is nowhere on it to type a name or a number, and it loads no analytics. Your browser still keeps a history.
More help
- A lawyer for something else: When you need a lawyer and can’t pay.
- An offer that feels off: Is this a scam?
- Someone is using your name or papers: When someone is using your name.
- Someone is holding your documents or your pay: If someone is forcing you to work or to sell sex and When something is wrong at work.
- Your state’s consumer office and attorney general: Your state’s offices.
- Lost papers: When your ID is gone.
- You cannot find a person at all: When someone is missing.
- Food and a doctor, whatever your papers say: When you need food and When you need a doctor and can’t pay.
- Long letters are hard to read: Read it my way.
- Before a hard phone call: Call script.
- Right now: Get help now.
- All our free tools.
This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). No lawyer or accredited representative has reviewed it. The facts were read on October 7, 2026 on each source’s own pages: the Federal Trade Commission’s “How To Avoid Immigration Scams and Get Real Help” (November 2023); USCIS’s Avoid Scams, Common Scams and Legal Services (each last reviewed August 4, 2026), Report Immigration Scams (November 2, 2020) and USCIS Contact Center (April 20, 2026); six pages of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Department of Justice office that runs the immigration courts; and USAGov’s pages on case status, the deportation process, locating someone detained by ICE (each March 17, 2026) and legal aid. Scarlet Beast is not part of, or endorsed by, any of them. Left out on purpose, because we did not read it on those pages or because it changes: who qualifies for asylum, a visa, a Green Card, citizenship or any other status; every deadline and every fee; what happens if a hearing is missed; bond and release; what officers may or may not do; any state’s law; and every statistic. The Department of Justice’s pages say “aliens”; we say “people”. What we could not open: ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System refused our server even in a browser, so the link to it is the one USAGov gives and we did not see the search itself. ice.gov, dhs.gov and americanbar.org refuse plain requests from our server; the four pages we link there were opened in a browser, and we read only their opening sections. We read only the front page of the Immigration Court Online Resource. We called no number. Everything marked “ours” is ours. It saves nothing: no cookies, no storage, and no analytics on this page.