Immigration consultants started working in the 1960s when a large number of qualified people have started migrating from Asia and Latin America to U.S.A., Canada and Europe. Generally these developed countries have requirement of highly skilled professionals and so they have very strict and complicated rules for immigration and visa processing. To help people who need clarity regarding the Visa and Immigration rules of various countries, this concept of immigration consultancies has come forward. An immigration consultant is an individual who advises potential immigrants on matters related to migration and is an advisory and confidant who handles queries related to immigration and helps people with the documentation and legality related to the migration process of an individual for business, study, work, and other personal matters. Many governments have authorized bodies that provide license to deserving immigration consultants who are thoroughly up-to-date about the Visa and Immigration rules of their country. 

Immigration consultants play an extremely important role in attracting qualified skilled immigrants, to fill specific labor market needs. Moreover they perform an extremely crucial function by assisting individuals/prospective immigrants, and others. Various foreign nationals/immigrants are not familiar with immigration rules nor are they capable of construing and comprehending such complicated terminology. This is when the immigration consultant’s role is crucial in order to ensure that the public are provided with the best service and advice. A consultant’s role includes spotting all the pitfalls and hiccups that may arise or to rephrase the aforementioned statement, a consultant anticipates the drawbacks that a client/foreign national may encounter such as inadmissibility issues whether criminal or medical. Immigration matters can often be complex and difficult to comprehend. Many applications take several months or even years to complete. It is noteworthy mentioning that an immigration consultant performs similar tasks as lawyers and many might agree with the fact that some consultants have broader knowledge/expertise pertaining to immigration matters compared to lawyers. Generally speaking, the immigration consultant’s role shall involve conveying and explaining information in an understandable form/manner, ensuring that a foreign national/prospective immigrant has a vivid picture of the immigration system.

Evolution

Immigration consultants make the process much easier and streamlined because they know the immigration process inside out and often have taken paralegal courses or attended law clerk colleges. The Government states that immigration consultants who provide immigration services or advice for a fee must be registered with the Government under the Protector General of Emigrants (PGE). This is to ensure that there is nobody masquerading as immigration consultants and offering advice or performing duties illegally – meaning that immigration consultants continue to be held in high regard. Our acceptance of other cultures and our growing diversity is something that we as a country pride ourselves about. However, recent developments have made the requirements to immigrate to other countries more stringent and complicated. Immigrants going into the process of integrating into other countries without an immigration consultant are liable to suffer through a long, arduous and frustrating process as they try and navigate through the reams and reams of bureaucracy and regulations, often costing mountains of money and ending with them back where they started in the beginning. Hence, they present background information on how the provision of immigration advice is regulated, presents the methodology for the evaluation and discusses limitations, presents the findings organized by evaluation issue, presents the conclusions and recommendations.

The Future Scopes

India being a developing economy and enormous potential to widen/develop immigration interface needs this domain more than anything to shape it up. Also, the current generation is more passionate and competitive. Immigration is a stressful process not just because of all the rules and paperwork but because immigrants are picking up and moving their entire lives to a different country and trying to settle in, so anything that can be done to ease that transition is immensely important. Immigration consultants strive to make that transition go smoothly with as few wrinkles as possible and to get it done in the most cost-effective way possible. They are absolutely essential to the immigration process and with many more people choosing to immigrate – the career opportunities for intelligent, hardworking immigration consultants are just going to keep expanding. The Immigration Consultant program teaches practical and theoretical information that follows the stringent regulatory guidelines set. Whether working in an immigration law office as an assistant or clerk and working as an immigration consultant, the career opportunities are not only vast but extremely rewarding. You’ll get to know that you helped make a difference and aided someone in integrating smoothly into other countries – and that’s a great feeling.