In 2007, Pro Bono Net joined forces with national immigrants' rights groups to create the Immigration Advocates Network (or IAN). From its roots as a single destination for advocates supporting immigrants, IAN quickly grew to develop new digital tools and initiatives to help immigrants find low-cost legal assistance, know their eligibility for immigration relief, and apply for naturalization. For nearly 15 years, IAN has worked to bridge the justice gap and helped hundreds of thousands find critical immigration information and relief.
As we celebrate 15 years of work, and look ahead to the future, we are excited to announce that the Immigrant Advocates Network is changing its name to Justicia Lab.
The Immigration Advocates Network has always served two roles. We have been a hub for advocate resources and a space for collaboration and the development of immigrant legal tech initiatives like Citizenshipworks, Immi, Immigration Law Help, and ¡Reclamo!. Today we are drawing a clearer line between the Immigration Advocates Network website and our role as a launchpad for immigration legal tech initiatives. Justicia Lab will now be the Pro Bono Net’s incubator of immigrant justice tech initiatives and the program under which the Immigration Advocates Network and all of our tools for immigrant justice will live.
True to our history, Justicia Lab’s mission is to transform immigrant justice through collaboration, creativity, and technology.By partnering with immigrants and their advocates, we’ll work to identify common challenges in our field and incubate scalable digital tools to help immigrants navigate our immigration system, find workplace justice, and more. We envision a world where all immigrants have easy, equitable access to legal tools and resources to protect themselves, navigate the justice system, and live more secure lives. Today, we are proud to announce that we aim to bring us closer to that world as Justicia Lab.
While our name is changing, the Immigration Advocates Network website will remain in place and our Citizenshipworks, Immi, Immigration Law Help, and ¡Reclamo! tools will continue to support and serve our partners as usual - albeit with a new look and feel. We worked with our friends at DYM Media to design an identity system that is more modern and approachable and that most importantly feels easy and accessible to use. Our bright and bold colors are designed to set us apart and inspire while our new name reflects our commitment to innovation and the communities that we serve.
Both technology and the legal process have historically been designed to exclude the most vulnerable. As the pandemic accelerated our transition to the online delivery of many essential services, this process also left many behind and exacerbated existing digital inequities and barriers to justice. Our aim is to rebalance the scales and give immigrants and their advocates new tools to assert their rights – all while addressing long standing problems in digital equity and inclusion by prioritizing equitable design practices, data privacy, and language justice.
We are thrilled to move forward as Justicia Lab and to continue to create innovative digital tools and initiatives that help individuals achieve their civil legal goals while addressing underpinning structural inequities. Partnerships, community, collaboration, and coalition building will continue to be at the heart of what we do. Over the next few weeks, we want to hear from you of what topics are impacting your community and what areas you’d like to see us build solutions for. There will also be other exciting announcements to share in the coming months about new major partnerships and projects. We hope that you’ll follow along.
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