James Pittman: Welcome back to Immigration Uncovered, the Docketwice video podcast where we dive deep into the dynamic world of immigration law, including the policy and the people shaping it. I'm your host, James Pittman, and today's episode is a very special one. This is our pre ALU conference episode, and we're gonna be looking ahead to some major moments that are coming up in the immigration world. So here's what we've got lined up for you today. So first, I'm gonna give you an exclusive preview of our 2025 state of immigration report, which drops on June 10. So this is gonna be, an annual resource that, you know, we've started producing, an annual resource for immigration lawyers. And it's a data packed report that breaks down adjudication trends, backlogs, approval rates, and other information concerning, you know, the processing of cases within the immigration system that you would like to know. So if you're trying to make smart decisions about your practice and you wanna understand where adjudications are going, this is a resource that you do not wanna miss. Again, it's gonna be available on June 10. Today, we're gonna tease the report and and a couple of its major findings. So that's first. Second, we're looking ahead to the biggest event of the year for immigration lawyers, and that is the annual conference of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, AALA, which is happening June in Denver, Colorado. So I'm gonna walk you through some of the highlights from the conference schedule and tell you what to watch out for and share some information about a few sessions that I'm personally very excited about. So whether this is your first conference or your fiftieth, there's something for everyone this year at AILA. And finally, I've got a personal invitation for those of you who are attending the conference. I want you to come and see me in the Exhibit Hall. I will we are Docketwise is the diamond sponsor this year. It will be at Booth Number 107. As a matter of fact, three of our brands are gonna be there, of course, Docketwise, but also LawPay. In my case, we are in the Exhibit Hall at Booth Number 107. And I will be recording live interviews throughout the conference, and I'd love to feature some of your voices on this podcast. So whether you've got your thoughts on, you know, policy that's going on, enforcement, practice management, tech, lawyer wellness, or anything else relating to immigration and practicing immigration law, I wanna hear from you, and I wanna see you at the conference, and we'll have short interviews. So grab your notebook, your coffee, or whatever, your noise canceling headphones, and let's dive into it. Okay? Let's get started. We've got a lot to cover. So every year, immigration law and policy evolve. Sometimes they change slowly. Sometimes they change really quickly in ways that take our breath away. And if you're anything like me, you probably had moments over the last year, especially the last four months, but certainly the whole last year where you're asking yourself, like, how can I get a high level understanding of what's going on with adjudications, adjudication trends, and other important trends in immigration law right now? So that is the question that we are setting out to answer with our 2025 state of immigration report. Again, this is this is the first of what is going to be an annual resource for immigration lawyers. And this report is being released on June 10. It's packed with federal immigration data, some analysis, and special insights designed especially for immigration lawyers. So let's just take a look and preview our report. Again, 2025 legal industry reports, state of immigration. So this is insights from the 2024 adjudication data and talking about the trends shaping the year ahead. Alright. So, here we have what we're gonna cover. We're gonna cover permanent residency statistics, naturalization, nonimmigrant visa, asylum statistics, immigration court outcomes, and the immigration court backlog, refugee admissions, and then our conclusion. Okay. Here I am, as your author. So I'm gonna spotlight a couple of the findings in One of the most eye opening stats that we uncovered relates to the immigration court backlog. So let's just put that up on the screen. And you can see that the backlog has been steadily growing starting in 2018, and it has hit a high. The high for the year 2024, which is the last year for which we have complete stats, was three point, seven million cases backlogged. So it has been, really a source of enormous concern, especially with the prioritization of enforcement by the current administration. So this kind of data isn't just interesting. It's essential. You know, when you're running a practice or if you're if you're leading a firm, you have knowing where the immigration system is heading, knowing, you know, what the system is coping with can help you to make smarter decisions and better serve your clients. So we want this report to be very practical, and you're gonna see visuals that make all the trends easier to digest, along with commentary and summaries about the trends highlighting the key takeaway conclusions. And some of these takeaways are things that you're gonna be able to apply immediately in your work. And it's part of sort of a larger project that I have in mind, which is to sort of, like, make immigration lawyers aware of the value of this enormous amount of government statistics that are available out there and how it's even possible to use, you know, macro immigration statistics to help make some decisions in your practice, especially when you're planning the direction of your practice and what types of cases you wanna handle. So I think the the volume of government statistics we have out there is an underutilized resource by practitioners, and, you know, this this report is the first step towards sort of making people aware of the depth of statistics that are out there and how they can be how they can be used. So now, how can you get the report? So we're making it available for free starting on June 10, but you're gonna need to visit the landing page, which we are gonna post when we post the podcast, in order to download it. Now we will be collecting contact info so we can share other resources with you as well. And, you know, that's all part of our mission here at Dockerwise is to support immigration lawyers with the tools, the tech, and the insights and intelligence that you need to thrive as an immigration lawyer practitioner. So please look for our state of immigration report starting on June 10. Oh, and by the way, I will be talking about the report in more detail at the Annual Conference. So I'm happy to discuss it at the conference. And now let's talk about what's happening in Denver this June. So let's talk about the big one. This is the twenty twenty five AILA Annual Conference, okay, happening June 18 through the '20 first in Denver, Colorado. And this, as many of you, of course, know is the marquee event of the year for immigration lawyers. If you've never been there, it's hard to describe just how energizing, and informative and honestly, you know, incredibly in-depth this event is. It's it's it's a it's an event where it's you know, it it simultaneously serves as a a boot camp for new immigration lawyers, an ongoing source of CLE and, you know, legal continuing legal education and updates for established practitioners, as well as a major networking event for everyone in the immigration lawyer space. So it's a rare moment when you get thousands of immigration lawyers from all over the country and beyond, including people from, you know, located in other countries, to come together to share ideas, engage in CLE, and remember why we do this work and network with each other while they get their CLE credits. So the full conference program is out, and it's loaded. It's on the AILA website, but I want to put it up here and give you a teaser about, you know, what is on tap. So here is our data glance. This is the a c 25. Alright. So this schedule, is available on AILA, maps out all the sessions day by day. So let's start with some of the hot topic sessions that I'm particularly excited about. So on Friday will be scope, the necessity for political engagement in the new Trump era. Let's take a look at that. So that is going to be here on Friday at 1PM. And this one, I think, is really important to go to. It dives into the need for immigration lawyers and their allies to get involved in meeting the political challenges to administration overreach while we work toward humane and sensible immigration reform. So immigration reform was something, you know, that had been on the table for, like, the last twenty or so years. That's kind of off the table right now. I mean, at least for the moment while we work on combating some of the administration overreach. So in order to protect your client's interests and your own practice, you need to attend this session. So given how fast things are moving and the extremes to which the administration's willing to go, and we've seen it with, you know, targeting of student visa holders, we've seen it with the ramping up in enforcement and the ICE raids taking place all over the country, including in places like churches, in places like courts. We've seen, you know, the arrest of more than one judge. We have seen the sweeping off the street of students who, you know, voice unfavorable opinions. So all of that is, you know, a sign of the extremes to which the administration is willing to go, and it is up to immigration lawyers and their allies to get involved in the political process in order to, you know, combat this overreach. So you need to go to this session, Friday at 01 So the next session that I'm excited about is on Wednesday, and this is called 50 tech tips in fifty minutes. And here we go. That's gonna be, again, at 1PM in the tech track. So if you hadn't noticed, the the conference is divided into tracks, like the fundamental topics, the technology track, the business immigration track, the family immigration track. There's a removal track as well as special sessions and open forums. So here, we have in the tech track 50 tech tips in fifty minutes, and I think this is definitely a must see. So, you know, it's you can buckle up. It's it's gonna be probably one of the fastest and most practical sessions of the conference. I can imagine this one flying by. In just fifty minutes, you're gonna get 50 bite sized, high impact tech tips to help you practice smarter, faster, and with more cybersecurity. So a lot of times with the tech areas, people, you know, can get a little bit overwhelmed. But when you break it down and just come up with short suggestions, tech related suggestions that you can implement without a lot of fuss, you know, that's very accessible to everybody. So from productivity hacks to automation tools to best practices around cybersecurity and and must have apps that are that are available or are coming out for immigration lawyers, this rapid fire session should deliver immediately usable insights and that, you know, when taken in the aggregate, can help to transform your day to day workflow. So whether you're a tech novice or whether you're a power user, you're gonna leave with new tools, trick tricks, and time saving advice. So another session that I'm excited about is called data protecting your firm, cybersecurity. Let's look at that one. So that is also on Wednesday, and that immediately follows the one that I just talked about. So that's gonna be 02 So cybersecurity is, of course, super important, just in general and very important for immigration lawyers. So in today's digital landscape, think about it. With all of the personal identifying information, all the personal details that go into preparing an immigration case, you can imagine that immigration law firms make attractive targets for cyberattacks and for cyber crooks. And the consequences of a data breach, of course, can be devastating. So this session will walk you through the most pressing cybersecurity threats facing legal professionals and what you can do to defend your practice and protect your client's interests. So from safeguarding client information to complying with ethical obligations and choosing the right tools and training for your team, the panel will share real world strategies to help you strengthen your cybersecurity posture. So another session that I thought was interesting is what is happening at the border. Actually, it's called what the heck is happening at the border, and that's in the removal track. Let's take a look at that. That's here on Thursday at 3PM. What the heck is happening at the border? So how does, you know, what's going on at the border affect your clients, affect your practice, and, you know, how can you stay informed on that, and how can you get involved? So this session unpacks the evolving policies, the political narratives that, you know, we're hearing around the border, the humanitarian challenges that this ramping up in enforcement is causing, and, you know, the enforcement actions which, you know, shape what's going on at the border today. So from, you know, the canceling of the or I should say retooling of the CBP one app. So that was an app, right, that people were using to schedule interviews to apply for asylum, and that was, you know, taken down by the government and and actually reconverted to an app that's used for people to report self deportation. So from the CBP one app to to access to asylum at the border to the fallout the title 42 fallout, to, you know, what's going on with credible fear screenings and what changes are involved. The panel's gonna, you know, provide clarity on what attorneys need to know about current developments. So I think that's super important. And then, of course, you have to take care of yourself as an attorney. So you wanna get in I I would think you would wanna get in at least one session in the ethics and wellness track. One that I like is here, how to stay sane in an insane field. And let's see here. That is in the fundamentals, and that also is on Thursday at 3PM. So that session has a strong focus on well, at the conference this year, I should say, there's a strong focus on lawyer well-being. And Ayla's putting real energy into, you know, helping members manage, you know, burnout and helping people manage, you know, the vicarious trauma that you can get from dealing with people going through all the difficulties of the immigration process these days, as well as the, you know, ethical risks that come, you know, when you're in a high stress practice and you're getting burned out. So you need to take care of yourself. So this panel will provide concrete advice on, you know, how lawyers can make sure that they are, you know, not letting the stress get the best of them. So let's see you there at that session. Alright. Now besides the sessions themselves, let's talk about the conference experience and the culture. Right? It's not just about the CLEs. The conference is a time to connect and reconnect, right, with your peers, with your own purpose and motivation for being an immigration lawyer, and with the community, with ALEN, the immigration lawyer community, that actually supports you and understands what it means to do immigration law, especially in the challenging environment of 2025. So you can expect networking receptions, various receptions, and social events during the conference. Some of them are in the mornings, some of them are in the evenings. There's typically a finishing social event, a party at the very end to cap it all off on Saturday. There are affinity group meetings. You know, there's some affinity groups or committees within AILA, whether it's, you know, the Asian and Pacific group or the Middle East group. Some of them are organized by, you know, geographical region and and other topics of special interest. And those groups typically schedule their meetups during the conference. Also, just conversations in the hallway that are just as valuable as the session. So you go there are networking breaks scheduled, and those discussions that you have with, you know, your colleagues are can provide, you know, enormous support. You can network and get names and and also ask people questions, and just it's it's just as valuable as the sessions, really, the opportunity to network with this large number of people. So make the best out of those between session breaks and the scheduled networking breaks. And, of course, there is the Exhibit Hall, the lively Exhibit Hall, which is gonna be filled with vendors and their tools, technology, and other products and services that are useful, if not essential, for immigration lawyers. And that is where you will find me for most of the time. I will also be in the sessions, but where you can look for me and expect to find me is gonna be in the Exhibit Hall. And that is why I want you to meet me at Booth Number 107. 3 of our AffinityPay brands will be there, and that is going to be Docketwise, LobPay in my case. So I want you to meet me at Booth 107, and let me give you this personal invitation. So if you are heading to the annual conference, stop by and see me. And why? Because I'm gonna be recording live podcast interviews throughout the conference, and I wanna feature you, the lawyers, the advocates, policy makers, policy analysts, tech experts, and all other immigration professionals doing the work every day on this podcast. So whether you've got thoughts on, you know, the current environment for immigration law, policies of the administration, enforcement, what have you, the challenges, whether it's that, whether it's the new tech tools that are, you know, changing how you run your practice, the developments in AI, and we wanna talk about that and hear your thoughts and what AI tools you're using or how you're using AI and and and what you think of the whole, you know, sort of the whole landscape around AI in the legal industry. We wanna hear about challenges, specific challenges that you're facing with your clients or with USCIS or with immigration courts. We wanna hear about your insights into whether it's ethics, specific issues around ethics, or lawyer wellness. I wanna hear about it. I wanna hear how you stay sane in the current times, and I wanna see how you take care of yourself as a practicing attorney. So or even, you know, a strong opinion about, you know, the conference or or, you know, your impressions of the conference. How is it? Is it great? Is it good? How can it be better? What should Aylid be doing next? I'd love to hear it. Okay. So I wanna hear it. I'd love to hear it. And I want our listeners to hear it too. So meet me at the conference once again, Exhibit Booth 107. So how do you get on the mic? So you can reserve a time slot in advance if you know that you wanna sit down for a quick ten to fifteen minute chat with me. So just reach out to me by email. Okay. I'm just james@docketwise.com. You can also reach out to me on LinkedIn or wherever we're connected, and I will send you a link to book a time. But if you're more of a spontaneous time or you don't know where you're gonna be or you're not sure, that's totally fine too. I will be doing some interviews on the fly without reservation. So if you see an open mic, if you see me there at Booth 107, come say hi. And if we've got the spot open, we will make it happen. K? I wanna give as many people as possible a chance to get on the mic. So you don't need to be a panelist. You don't need to be considered an expert or consider yourself an expert. You just need to be involved in the immigration law space and care about the immigration law field and have thoughts worth sharing. That could be a client story, a new idea, or reflections on how the conference is landing with you. Alright. So more than anything else, I'm doing this because I believe in the power of storytelling and the importance of our conversation. So it's our community of immigration lawyers. It's full of smart, passionate, and really, you know, wildly talented and resilient people, and I want as many of those voices to be heard as possible. Alright. So come and find me. I'm at Booth 107. And even if you don't wanna record, right, even if you're shy to get on the mic, I'd still love to meet you, talk shop, share ideas, or just say hello, maybe sit down for a coffee. Alright. So and with that, we have covered a lot today. So we've given you today a sneak peek at our 2025 state of immigration report, highlights and hot topics at this year's annual conference, and a personal invitation to connect with me in Denver at the conference. So mark your calendars, June 10, to get our full report, and I hope to see you in person at the conference starting June 18. Thank you for listening to immigration uncovered. And if you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow the show, leave some comments, and share it with a friend or colleague who's heading to the conference. Until next time, stay well, stay curious, and keep on fighting the good fight.