AI for Immigration Lawyers in 2026: RFEs, Evidence and the Client Inbox

AI can now pull names, dates and A-numbers out of a client's scanned passport, draft a first pass at an RFE response or a support letter, summarize a foreign-language document, and watch a whole caseload of receipt numbers for status changes. It can't certify a translation, sign under penalty of perjury for your client, or decide whether a weak case should be filed at all.

Immigration practice is unusually heavy on paper for a legal field. One family-based case can mean several USCIS forms, a stack of civil documents in two or three languages, and a client who checks the case status every morning and emails you whenever it doesn't change. Below, each part of that caseload gets the same treatment: what AI handles well today, which tools are built for it, which rules from USCIS and the immigration courts set the limits, and where a general assistant like Merlin fits.

Where the hours go in an immigration practice

Most of the clock in an immigration practice goes to gathering, checking and explaining, not to arguing a case. These are the tasks that fill the week:

• Intake in the client's language: questionnaires, document checklists and a first consultation, often through an interpreter or a family member.
• Form data: the same biographic details, addresses and travel history typed into several forms, then checked against the current edition of each form.
• Evidence packets: birth and marriage certificates, tax transcripts, employment letters and photos, sorted into a labeled exhibit list with a cover letter.
• Translations: every foreign-language page needs a full English translation with a translator's certification.
• RFEs and NOIDs: reading what the officer actually asked for, finding it, and getting the response out before a deadline that can't be extended.
• Status and dates: receipt numbers, biometrics notices, interview notices, and the monthly Visa Bulletin for clients waiting on a priority date.
• Client updates: the "any news?" emails, the employer HR contact who wants a timeline, and the relative who calls on the client's behalf.

What AI does for immigration lawyers, task by task

In 2026 the useful AI for immigration work sits in three places: research and drafting tools trained on immigration sources, case management systems that read documents into forms, and trackers that watch USCIS for you. General email and calendar assistants pick up the client communication around all three.

Research, drafting and RFE responses

Of the drafting tools, Visalaw AI has the closest tie to the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). Visalaw and AILA announced Gen, an AI research and drafting assistant with a built-in immigration law library and AILA's practice manual, in June 2023. Visalaw's product page now lists research with citations, document extraction, petition letter and brief drafting, reviewing RFEs, building exhibit lists and translating intake questionnaires, across case types from I-130 and I-485 to H-1B, NIW and asylum. Visalaw says the platform is SOC 2 Type II certified and retains no data. Its pricing page listed the Core plan at $220 a month per license, billed annually, in October 2026, with drafts at $150 each unless you take the Pro plan.

An RFE is where a drafting tool earns its fee or wastes your afternoon. AI is good at the first hour: restating each item the officer asked for, matching it against what's already in the file, and drafting a response outline. The judgment calls are still yours, such as whether a new expert letter is worth the time or whether the RFE signals a denial coming either way.

Forms, evidence and translations

Case management systems now use AI mostly to stop retyping. Docketwise, part of the legal software company 8am, describes an assistant that reads scanned passports and green cards into forms and client profiles, intake questionnaires in several languages, and a form library covering USCIS, EOIR, Department of Labor and Department of State forms. Its pricing page puts the AI assistant, Docketwise IQ, on the Pro plan and up, from $100 per user a month in October 2026. Mitratech, which makes INSZoom, used the AILA Annual Conference in June 2026 to show Visalaw AI running inside INSZoom, a feature that files incoming government notices into case records, and a client portal preview that extracts data from uploaded documents.

For foreign-language evidence, AI translation is a fast way to see what a document says and whether it matters. It isn't the translation you file. The certified translation still has to come from someone who can stand behind it, as the rules below explain.

Case status, notices and priority dates

USCIS's own Case Status Online shows the last action on a case from its 13-character receipt number, and a USCIS online account shows up to the last five actions. Trackers like Lawfully watch many receipt numbers at once and send push alerts on any change, and add predictions of processing time and RFE likelihood. Treat those predictions as estimates. Priority dates add another monthly check: USCIS picks which Visa Bulletin chart applies to adjustment filings each month, and for October and November 2026 it chose Dates for Filing for both family and employment categories.

The rules that limit AI in immigration work

Immigration filings carry their own regulations on translations, signatures and deadlines, and those rules don't change because a tool did the first draft. These are the ones that touch AI most directly:

• Translations. Every foreign-language document filed with USCIS needs a full English translation, and the translator certifies that it's complete and accurate and that they're competent to translate (8 CFR 103.2(b)(3)). A machine can't make that certification, so a person who reads both languages has to check the AI's work line by line before signing it.
• Signatures. The applicant or petitioner signs the benefit request and certifies under penalty of perjury that it and the evidence are true and correct (8 CFR 103.2(a)(2)). If AI filled the form, walk the client through every answer before they sign. USCIS lets clients review and sign forms their attorney prepared in their own online account.
• RFE deadlines. The response period for most forms is at most 12 weeks (84 days), plus 3 days when the RFE is mailed, and USCIS officers can't extend it. For Forms I-539 and I-601A the maximum is 30 days. Put the date on your calendar the day the RFE arrives, whatever tool drafts the response.
• Immigration court. EOIR's Policy Memorandum 25-40 of August 2025 neither bans generative AI nor requires you to disclose it, but warns that filing hallucinated or wrong AI content likely breaches professional conduct obligations, and it lets individual courts adopt their own AI standing orders (AILA's summary). Check your judge's rules before filing.
• Asylum confidentiality. Information in asylum, withholding and Convention Against Torture applications can't be disclosed without the applicant's written consent under 8 CFR 208.6. Before uploading an asylum declaration to any AI tool, know where that tool stores it and who can see it.

What stays with the lawyer

Immigration law punishes small mistakes and rewards judgment that no current tool has. Keep these with you or your team:

• Strategy. Which category to file under, whether to file now or wait for a priority date, and whether a prior overstay or arrest changes the plan.
• Credibility. An asylum or VAWA declaration has to be the client's own account, in their own words. AI can tidy a translation; it shouldn't add detail the client never gave.
• Admissibility questions. Criminal history, prior removals and misrepresentation issues need your reading of the record, not a summary.
• Bad news. Telling a family that an interview went badly or that a case was denied is a conversation, not a template.

Where Merlin fits in an immigration practice

Merlin is a desktop assistant for macOS. Linked to the firm's Gmail account and its Google calendar, it remembers who each correspondent is and what you told them you'd do. In an immigration practice those correspondents are the client, the employer's HR contact, co-counsel and the relative who writes in on a client's behalf.

Merlin is not immigration software. It doesn't fill USCIS forms, check case status, track priority dates, certify translations, answer phones or texts, or bill clients, and it works with Gmail and Google Calendar, not Outlook. Keep a case management system like the ones above for the case itself.

• Unanswered clients. In Merlin, the People list puts anyone who wrote to you personally and hasn't heard back under Needs you, so the HR manager asking for an H-1B timeline doesn't sit for a week.
• Replies you approve. Type "answer my I-130 client's status question" into Merlin's chat and the reply shows up for editing first; nothing leaves your Gmail until you approve it.
• Before a consultation. About 10 minutes before a meeting on your Google Calendar, Merlin sends a brief with the background on the people attending and what you've already discussed with them.
• Recording consultations. Merlin records calls on your Mac. On paid plans it transcribes them with speaker labels and detects the spoken language on its own, so a consultation held in the client's language is transcribed without changing a setting. A transcript is not a translation, though. The audio is uploaded for transcription and the transcript is stored with your Merlin account, so get the client's consent and decide case by case, especially for asylum matters.
• Routines. Set one to fire at a set time or whenever a matching email arrives, for example a Monday summary of every client email from the past week that mentions an RFE. Routines run without asking each time, so start with summaries to yourself before letting one send anything.

Five first moves with AI for an immigration firm

Begin where the work is repetitive and a mistake is cheap to catch, and leave drafting for filings until a tool has proved itself on old files.

1. Find out what your case management system already does. Docketwise, INSZoom and eImmigration have all added AI features; you may be paying for document extraction you haven't switched on.
2. Test a drafting tool on a closed case. Give it an RFE you've already answered and compare its draft with what you filed before trusting it with a live deadline.
3. Write a firm rule for AI translations. Machine translation for reading, a qualified translator's certification for filing, no exceptions.
4. Decide where client documents may go. List which tools may receive passports, medical records and asylum declarations, and check each vendor's data terms.
5. Clear the client inbox. Use an assistant to surface unanswered client emails and draft the routine status replies, so your time goes to the cases that need it.

If you record consultations, our roundup of meeting note takers lays out the options, and Gmail labels are a simple way to keep each client's thread in one place.