JustiGuide wants to use artificial intelligence to help people navigate the US immigration system

The US immigration system is complex, difficult to navigate, and expensive for immigrants. Startup JustiGuide claims it can help with this thanks to its AI-powered portal.

The idea is to help immigrants in the United States – and eventually in other countries – understand the law, which visas they may qualify for, and connect with immigration lawyers, making the whole process cheaper and faster.

“I think the more we make technology accessible to everyone, I think people will be empowered to try to fill out their forms and understand what their options are, and they’ll be able to have lawyers just in the review process,” JustiGuide founder Bisi Obateru told TechCrunch.

Obateru, who is from Nigeria, remembers how he had to navigate the US immigration system after he finished his studies in the country. Since then, he has obtained an H1-B visa, a combined visa for tech workers, and then a green card for permanent residency.

This inspired him to launch JustiGuide to help his fellow immigrants. “Migrants can come and speak their native language and understand what their migration journey could be like,” he said.

The company won the Best Presentation award in the Policy + Security category at the Disrupt conference organized by TechCrunch this year.

JustiGuide’s clients, according to Obateru, are startup founders who need help recruiting immigrants, individuals with H1-B and looking for other options, international students thinking about starting their own businesses, as well as lawyers and law firms. But he also hopes that government institutions will one day want to license the technology.

The platform consists of an AI-powered legal research assistant, a system that brings together 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 compile documents and simplify processes that a paralegal would otherwise undertake, Obateru explained.

According to Opatero, the platform, which has 47,000 users, is based on artificial intelligence called Dolores, which is “an artificial intelligence that continues to improve in a specific area that understands immigration to the United States.” Dolores also translates into 12 languages.

Dolores has been trained on more than 40,000 court cases, which JustiGuide obtained from the Free Law Project, a nonprofit organization that provides free access to legal materials, according to Opatero. He said the startup is also in the process of registering as a law firm so it can connect its users and clients directly with its immigration lawyers.

Initially, JustiGuide programmed Dolores — based on keywords — to go around and scan subreddits, Facebook groups, Instagram and LinkedIn posts, looking for migrants who needed help, and sending them messages with the answers, according to Opatero.

To protect immigrants’ privacy, the JustiGuide platform is stored locally and encrypted, and information is only exchanged when the immigrant contacts a lawyer. Some user information is also anonymized, Obateru said.