The need for professionally trained advocates continues to be critical due to complex changes in immigration law enacted in 1996, government restructuring, and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Since 1991, the ILRC’s National Paralegal Training Program (NPTP) has supported nonprofit organizations and paralegals in obtaining Board of Immigration (BIA) agency recognition and legal worker accreditation to represent clients.
The ILRC developed our skills-based, interactive curriculum, A Guide for Immigration Advocates, in 1991. Since then, we have sponsored this comprehensive training on the fundamentals of immigration law in collaboration with dozens of our partner organizations across the country. We’ve worked to institutionalize our 40-hour intensive training courses in colleges and community-based organizations, recruiting and training instructors as far and diverse as New York to Iowa, Texas to Oregon. On average, these courses have been offered a dozen times a year (in various locations), training over 300 students a year. The courses have several formats, generally with weekly classes in a semester format, and some formats offer five or six 8-hour instructional days for a condensed training experience. More information, including course dates and locations, can be found here.
For information on how to obtain BIA Accreditation, visit the United States Department of Justice’s website.
