Attorneys have been in the forefront of the ongoing battles around the Trump administration’s U.S. immigration policies. Now, the American Bar Association is looking to enable lawyers to be even more active in helping the immigration cases of minors.

Last week, the American Bar Association unveiled an online platform connecting pro bono attorneys with children in deportation proceedings.

Dubbed Pro Bono Matters for Children Facing Deportation, the online portal provides brief descriptions of children facing deportation, written by nonprofit legal aid organizations. Attorneys that are interested in providing pro bono services for these children can send their personal and contact information to the nonprofits via the portal.

“It was a way to funnel pro bono interests to one site that has pro bono opportunities in different states,” said Dalia Castillo-Granados, director of the ABA’s Children’s Immigration Law Academy. She explained that growing media coverage of migration into the U.S. has fueled more awareness of the hurdles faced by some immigrant children.

“Children are not given a court-appointed attorney, and I think there’s been more awareness of that in the legal community and in the general public. And because of ongoing issues at the border and other immigration-related issues, people are more interested in giving their time and expertise in representing immigrant children in Immigration Court,” Castillo-Granados said.

The ABA’s Children’s Immigration Law Academy will operate the program and, along with the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR) and Catholic Charities New Orleans, will list opportunities on the new portal. Castillo-Granados said the ABA plans to add more nonprofits to the platform in the future. 

For interested lawyers, Castillo-Granados noted Spanish-speaking attorneys or lawyers with experience practicing immigration law are appreciated, though an eagerness to give their time is the essential quality needed.

“It would be great if the attorneys had some experience in immigration or were Spanish-speaking because the majority of the children are from Central American countries. But that shouldn’t stop a pro bono attorney from filling out an interest form. There are organizations like ours that train attorneys,” she said.

Beyond turning to legal aid organizations to list descriptions of their clients’ circumstances, the ABA also enlisted tech company SavvySuit to build the platform.

The Orlando-based company isn’t a stranger to creating lawyer-specific platforms, having previously designed the Florida Bar Foundation’s Florida Pro Bono Law School Challenge website that connects law students and alumni to provide pro bono assistance for legal aid organizations’ cases.