The US immigration system is complex, difficult to navigate and expensive for immigrants. Startup JustiGuide claims it can help with this thanks to an AI-powered portal.
The idea is to help immigrants to the US — and eventually other countries — understand the law and the visas they may be eligible for, and connect them with immigration attorneys, making the whole process cheaper and faster.
“I think the more we make the technology accessible, I think people will have the ability to try to fill out their own forms and understand what their options are and that they can use lawyers just for the review process,” JustiGuide founder Bisi Obateru told TechCrunch.
Obateru, who is from Nigeria, recalled how he had to navigate the US immigration system after finishing his studies in the country. Since then, he got an H1-B visa, a common visa for technology workers, and then a green card for permanent residence.
This inspired him to start JustiGuide to help other immigrants. “Immigrants can come and speak basically in their native language and understand what their migration journey might be,” he said.
The company won best pitch in the Policy + Protection category at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference this year.
JustiGuide’s customers, according to Obateru, are startup founders who need help hiring immigrants, H1-B holders looking for other options, international students considering starting their own business, and lawyers and law firms. But he also hopes that someday perhaps government institutions will want to license the technology.
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The platform consists of an AI legal research assistant, a system that matches lawyers and immigrants and promises to speed up the form-filling process. The latter is done by providing lawyers with a service that helps them draft documents and streamline processes that a lawyer might otherwise do, Obateru explained.
According to Obateru, the platform, which has 47,000 users, is based on an artificial intelligence he called Dolores, “a continuously improving domain-specific AI that understands US immigration.” Dolores also does translations in 12 languages.
Dolores trained on over 40,000 court cases, which JustiGuide sourced from Free legal worka nonprofit organization that provides free access to legal materials, according to Obateru. The startup is also in the process of registering as a law firm so it can directly connect its users and clients with its own immigration attorneys, he said.
At first, JustiGuide programmed Dolores to — based on keywords — go and scan subreddits, Facebook groups, Instagram and LinkedIn posts, looking for immigrants who needed help and texted them with responses, according to Obateru.
To protect immigrants’ privacy, JustiGuide’s platform is stored on-prem and encrypted, and only when an immigrant connects with a lawyer is information exchanged. Some user information is also anonymized, Obateru said.
