An Illinois legal-aid organization is using artificial intelligence to update Spanish-language immigration information within 24 hours, replacing a translation process that previously took two to four weeks.
Illinois Legal Aid Online has served 65,000 users on its Spanish-language website this year, and immigration has become its most-searched topic as federal enforcement increases, Executive Director Teri Ross said.
The nonprofit uses machine-learning translation tools and a translation memory reviewed by Spanish-speaking lawyers. Ross said faster updates are especially important because people facing civil matters, including immigration cases, generally do not have a guaranteed right to an attorney.
The same technology also creates risks. Ross said people increasingly rely on tools such as ChatGPT and Google's AI summaries, which may draw from trusted legal sites without sending users to the original source.
AI-generated legal answers can also be wrong or fail to account for state and local law, she said. Ross advised people confronting high-stakes immigration or housing issues to verify information through credible legal sources.
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