Areas of Expertise

The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) immigration attorneys’ expertise focuses on family-based immigration, humanitarian relief, naturalization and citizenship, immigration enforcement, and removal defense.

Since 1979 we have helped expand the immigration expertise of attorneys, nonprofit staff, criminal defenders, and others assisting immigrant clients.

In addition to authoring the ILRC’s practice manuals, our expert attorneys have been published by Continuing Education of the Bar (CEB), American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), ILW.com, Huffington Post, Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, Center for Law and Social Policy, The Hill, LexisNexis Emerging Issues, and Fox News Latino.
 
We have also provided training to National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), American Bar Association Commission on Immigration, Federal Bar Association, The State Bar of California, Legal Aid Association of California, Judicial Council of California and more.

Press Room
The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) is a national nonprofit resource center that provides immigration legal trainings, technical assistance, and educational materials, and engages in advocacy and immigrant civic engagement to advance immigrant rights.

Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS)
Immigrant Youth
Highlighting Changes Implemented by the Trafficking Victims Protection and Reauthorization Act (03/2009): These are materials from our March 2009 webinar which highlighted important new changes implemented by the Trafficking Victims Protection and Reauthorization Act of 2008 (signed into law on December 23, 2008) to the eligibility requirements for filing a Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) petition. Expert practitioners provided strategies to overcome challenges posed in obtaining SIJS, including obtaining juvenile court orders from dependency, delinquency, and probate courts and obtaining specific consent to apply for SIJS while a child is in federal custody. If you are interested in participating in this webinar if held in the future please email seminars@ilrc.org.

Immigration Benchbook for Juvenile and Family Courts
Immigrant Youth
Immigration Benchbook for Juvenile and Family Courts, Updated July 2010 (PDF, 2010) This is a national benchbook for juvenile and family court judges on various immigration related issues including: Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, adoption, VAWA, U Visas, divorce, child custody, immigration consequences of delinquency and crime, and immigration enforcement.

Acquisition & Derivation Quick Reference Charts
Citizenship and Naturalization
These three charts, updated in 2025, outline the different requirements for acquiring and deriving citizenship. Because the law governing acquisition and derivation has changed many times and is generally not retroactive, these charts detail what the eligibility requirements are depending on the time period in question. Each chart has extensive footnotes that provide explanations about the legal requirements, possible arguments where there is any ambiguity, and cites to further resources.

Model Code of Responsibility of BIA-Accredited Representatives
Policy Advocacy
This model code was written as a collaboration between our staff and accredited representatives around the country. It was inspired, in part, by the complaint heard occasionally (mostly from attorneys) that, while attorneys have a code of ethics to which they are bound, accredited representatives have no such code.

Profile of Organizing Efforts of Proyecto Campesino
Citizenship and Naturalization
This report is an introductory narrative of how Proyecto Campesino and O.L.A. Raza conduct community organizing, rural leadership development, and civic participation campaigns using radio programs, naturalization assistance, citizenship classes, and civic action leagues comprised of immigrant membership. Farmworker organizations can duplicate and adapt some of the information and organizing techniques in their own communities that these two dynamic organizations have been using for years.