Responsible AI in U.S. Immigration Practice (Presented by The Federal Bar Association Immigration Law, Filevine)

Monica Hernandez-Santiago, Junior Partner | Sanabria & Associates

Born in New York and raised in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, Mónica graduated Cum Laude from the University of Puerto Rico with a Bachelor’s Degree in Information and Journalism. Afterward, she became a first-generation lawyer graduating Cum Laude with her Juris Doctor at the University of Puerto Rico School of Law, where she represented low-income clients on asylum, naturalization, and employment authorization matters as a Student Attorney under the supervision of the UPR Immigration Law Clinic.

During Law School, Mónica dedicated more than five hundred pro-bono hours advocating and working for Children and Youth’s rights, particularly for those in Juvenile Institutions. She also developed educational materials on immigration processes and immigrant rights for the immigrant community on the Island. As well a member of the UPR Law Review, where she published the article “Discretion or Discrimination? Racial Profiling at Ports of Entry of the United States of America”.

In addition to being licensed to practice law by the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, Mónica is a Certified Mediator by the same Court and a Certified Legal Project Practitioner by the International Institute of Legal Project Management in Australia.

Mónica is fluent in Spanish and English and has basic knowledge of Portuguese.

Daniel Bilotti, SVP, Delivery | Filevine

Dan Bilotti is the Senior Vice President of Delivery at Filevine, where he drives product development for marquee initiatives such as ImmigrationAI, the platform’s deadline-creation engine, and new AI-powered workflows that automate legal practice. Most recently, he led Filevine’s enterprise rollout for New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services. Before Filevine, Dan built and scaled customer-facing teams at high-growth SaaS companies—including Everlance, Avalara, and Alarm.com—using data-driven strategies to accelerate revenue. He began his career in complex civil litigation as a U.S. Army JAG Captain and later served as a White House Military Social Aide to President and First Lady Obama.

Dan holds an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School, a J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law, and an A.B. in Economics from Harvard University. Passionate about democratizing access to justice through technology, he is committed to bringing the next generation of AI tools to immigration attorneys.

I. Ethical and Regulatory Responsibilities in AI Use | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

• ABA Formal Opinion 512 and AI competence requirements
• Key professional duties: confidentiality, supervision, informed consent
• OMB M-25-21 and M-25-22: Agency oversight of high-impact AI
• Legal impact of DHS system expansion on immigration proceedings

II. Government AI Systems in Immigration Practice | 2:10pm – 2:18pm

• Live systems: FDNS-DS NexGen, Hurricane Score, FaceMatch
• Functions, risks, and implications for clients and counsel
• Strategies for identifying and challenging automated decision-making

III. Key Legal Risks in AI-Driven Immigration Practice | 2:18pm – 2:24pm

• Hallucinations and misinformation in AI-generated content
• Breaches of confidentiality and ethical billing concerns
• Risks of algorithmic bias and vendor lock-in in black-box systems

IV. Implementing a Responsible AI Framework | 2:24pm – 2:36pm

• Pillars 1–2: Technical competence and secure data stewardship
• Pillars 3–4: Bias testing procedures and human oversight standards
• Pillars 5–6: Vendor controls and transparent client communication
• Aligning these pillars to existing legal ethics rules and workflows

V. Case Study: Challenging a USCIS Fraud-Risk Flag | 2:36pm – 2:41pm

• Use of FOIA and GAO reports to challenge FDNS-DS NexGen outputs
• Legal strategies to argue arbitrariness and bias in administrative proceedings
• Creating and preserving internal audit trails for appeals

VI. Legal-Tech Implementation for AI Governance | 2:41pm – 2:46pm

• Embedding AI factsheets and model details into legal platforms
• Logging prompts, outputs, and reviewer sign-offs to meet supervision standards
• Structuring workflows for transparency and real-time compliance

VII. Compliance Execution: 10-Day Checklist for Law Firms | 2:46pm – 2:50pm

• Quick-start actions for internal compliance: inventory, clause drafting, retention safeguards
• Enabling bias testing, logging, and internal team education

VIII. Q&A | 2:50pm – 3:00pm