Connecting in Chicago: the Commission on Immigration and the Broader ABA

On June 12, 2024, about 30 colleagues from the Commission on Immigration’s DC office, ProBAR, the Immigration Justice Project, and the Children’s Immigration Law Academy, visited the ABA Headquarters in Chicago. From June 12 through June 16, many of us attended the AILA Annual Conference that took place this year in Chicago. To maximize the fact that we were all converging in Chicago, we arranged to meet with ABA leadership and tour the Chicago office that occupies five floors in a historic building with breathtaking views of the city skyscrapers and Lake Michigan.

During the visit we met with several members of the ABA senior leadership team. ABA leaders expressed their appreciation for the work performed in Washington, DC, Texas, and California, and mentioned how inspiring it was for leaders to travel to the border and witness first-hand the compelling realities and legal response in the region. 

The ABA is the largest voluntary bar association in the world.  It is voluntary in the sense that lawyers are not required to join, but they join because they want to contribute to the great work of the Association and can build their professional network and skill set. People sometimes assume that the ABA is a governmental agency, but it is not.  It is a professional membership organization with a charitable branch called the ABA Fund for Justice and Education, under which most of the domestic grants and contracts are administered, including those that support the Commission's work. The Chicago office has about 400 employees, compared to the ProBAR Harlingen office with about 270, Washington, DC, with 200, IJP in San Diego with close to 30, CILA in Houston with 13, and the ProBAR Houston field office with 5.

The ABA’s motto is “defending liberty, pursuing justice,” and this is exactly what ABA members and staff, including the Commission on Immigration, do daily in the United States and in 50 countries around the world.