Program areas at AILA
Advocacy, liaison, and Immigration policy:in keeping with its mission to promote justice and advocate for fair and reasonable Immigration law and policy, aila advocated for legislative changes, congressional oversight, and administrative changes on a wide range of Immigration issues, including due process in all procedures affecting people's Immigration status, improved case processing times, Immigration court reform, reductions in the use of detention and unnecessary enforcement measures, and ensuring a fair, humane and equitable legal Immigration system.aila organized a wide variety of advocacy actions for our members to participate in, including a national day of action lobby day, letters to congress campaigns, and model comment campaigns for regulatory and policy changes. In addition, aila continued to push policy and legal positions on a variety of substantive and procedural issues through our aila member volunteer committees, ngo working groups and partnerships, and formal and informal agency liaison. Aila also continued to provide case liaison assistance on case inquires and mentoring and practice guidance on telephonic and email inquiries.
Practice and professionalism tools and resources:aila developed various resources to help members maintain professional values and follow mandated professional conduct rules. One such resource is the aila ethics compendium developed by the ethics committee to help Immigration Lawyers navigate ethics rules and ethical dilemmas that arise in Immigration practice. In addition, the ethics committee continued to publish a series of shorter articles entitled "bite-sized ethics", covering commonly asked questions and providing ethical guidance for members. As a result of the rapid changes to the practice of Immigration law, aila created new resources to help members understand the changes, especially in technology, occurring in the legal marketplace and how those changes influence the way Immigration Lawyers deliver legal services. In 2023, our professionalism staff also engaged one-to-one with members hundreds of times at chapter and national events to resolve issues and answer questions about their practice needs.
Educational resources:aila's focus continued to be on enhancing the quality and value of our members' learning experience, while also evaluating program effectiveness and expanding access to essential materials. Aila is a major legal publisher dedicated solely to Immigration law and practice, with over 38 publications to guide members through this ever-changing field of law. This includes the aila law journal, a member benefit that is produced in partnership with full court press and that was accessed by members over 1,950 times in 2023. Aila's in-person and virtual conferences, web seminars, webcasts, and video roundtables provide members with a diversified portfolio of learning options led by experienced Immigration law practitioners. Aila's e-learning site provides members with additional e-learning opportunities as well in the form of live and prerecorded online courses. Some learning options provide unique opportunities to hear from representatives of various government agencies that regulate Immigration law and policy. The offerings for 2023 provided a plethora of continuing legal education (cle)-eligible programming including the annual conference which offered a comprehensive fundamentals track as well as advanced tracks covering the main areas of Immigration and the hands-on litigation institute. Aila also provided a wealth of online education resources as part of membership including video roundtables and seminar recordings. Aila's website, aila.org, contains over 42,061 immigration-related documents in the infonet research library, making it one of the primary benefits of aila membership. Ailalink is aila's subscription-based Immigration law research database, with fully searchable access to the resources essential for practicing Immigration law. In addition, all aila members received complimentary access to the fastcase research library, a searchable database of federal court and board of Immigration appeals decisions. Aila's flagship daily e-newsletter, aila8, allows readers to peruse the top 8 Immigration news items of the day in 8 minutes or less. In 2023, aila delivered over 100 education events in various formats and published 14 new publications, in both print and digital formats.
Wellness and self-care:in response to member requests, aila increased resources for members to better handle the rising stress of Immigration law practice. Aila continued to add new resources to the lawyer well-being center (now, the well-being center), where members can turn for articles on reducing stress and building resilience to chronic stress, live video roundtables on a variety of well-being topics, and short audio recordings of meditations among other resources. In addition, aila hosted its fourth annual lawyer well-being (lwb) week along with other bar associations across the country during the first week of may 2023.
Pro bono resources:aila hosted pro bono programs to help members meet their professional obligations to provide free legal services. Aila had several programs including citizenship day, the aila annual conference clinic, and the military assistance program (map) that matched active enlisted military personnel who need Immigration assistance for themselves or a close family member with aila members who volunteer their services at no charge. In addition, aila educated members on a variety of other pro bono opportunities available remotely throughout the country.