Immigration attorney answering service, in English and Spanish.
An immigration attorney answering service answers an immigration firm's phone when the office is closed. Call Della answers in English or Spanish and takes the intake itself: Della captures detention details, A-numbers, court dates and filing deadlines, and files a dossier before 7am. Deadlines drive this practice. An asylum application generally must be filed within one year of the applicant's last arrival in the United States, under 8 CFR 208.4.
"Mi hermano fue detenido esta mañana en el trabajo. Está en un centro de detención. No sé qué hacer."
Why does an immigration firm need an answering service in Spanish?
An immigration law firm answering service needs Spanish because callers in a family emergency speak the language they are most comfortable in, and a caller who is not understood hangs up. Della answers in English or Spanish. She detects the caller's language on the greeting and runs the intake in that language, with a Spanish voice and an intake flow written in Spanish rather than translated live.
The recording and transcript stay in the language the caller used, so nothing is lost or paraphrased before the attorney reviews it. Spanish is the one second language Call Della offers today, and it is live on the immigration flow only. Calls in other languages are still answered and recorded, and they reach your team in the dossier list so you can arrange an interpreter for the callback.
What should an immigration intake capture on a detention call?
An immigration intake on a detention call should capture who was detained, where, when, and what the family knows about the person's status and history. Della asks for the detained person's full name, country of birth and A-number if the caller has it. She asks where and when the person was picked up and which facility they were taken to, if known.
She asks about family in the United States and their status, prior immigration history, and any past removal orders or court dates. Della cannot search the ICE detainee locator herself; she records what the caller knows so your team can confirm it through official channels. If the A-number is missing, the dossier says so. Detention calls are scored as urgent and emailed to the attorney on call, so the firm can decide that night what happens next.
How does AI intake help immigration lawyers with deadlines?
AI for immigration lawyers is most useful at the first call, when a deadline can be caught before it is buried in a voicemail queue. Many immigration matters turn on dates: the one-year asylum filing deadline in 8 CFR 208.4, a hearing date on a Notice to Appear, a visa or status expiry, a response window on a government notice.
Della asks the caller what document they received, what date it shows and what it asks them to do, and records the wording if the caller can read it out. The dossier puts the deadline at the top, with the urgency score set by how close it is. Della does not interpret the document or tell the caller what to file, because that is legal advice. For the full field list, see our law firm client intake form, and for the rules Della works under, the AI legal intake compliance guide.
Who calls after your office closes?
A caller's brother was picked up by ICE at work this morning and taken to a detention center two states away. She speaks Spanish and does not know what to do. Your office closed four hours ago. The next firm she calls might answer.
Spanish intake, not live translation.
Della's Spanish is a separate voice and intake flow built on Retell's Spanish models, not a translation layer over an English agent. She detects the caller's language on the greeting, runs the intake in Spanish, and the recording and transcript stay in the language the caller used.
Which immigration calls does Della handle?
ICE has picked up a family member. The caller is frightened, often Spanish-speaking, and may not know where the person is held. Della captures what the family knows, in the caller's language.
- Detained person’s name and A-number (if known)
- Country of birth
- Where and when they were picked up, and the facility if known
- Family in the US (citizens, LPRs, others)
The caller has just realized a visa expires next week, an asylum filing window is closing, or a Notice to Appear arrived in the mail. The date matters more than anything else on the call.
- Deadline date and document type (NTA, visa expiry, asylum filing window)
- Current immigration status
- Prior immigration history
- Caller relationship and callback details
The caller has a Notice to Appear or a date in immigration court. Della captures the court details and current representation before the call goes into the morning queue.
- Court location and hearing date
- Charges listed on the NTA
- Current representation (private attorney, pro bono, none)
- Family or community ties to the US
Status, family-petition and work-authorization questions. Della captures the situation, scores the urgency and routes it to the attorney's morning queue without making any promise of representation.
- Current immigration status
- The specific question or situation
- Family in the US and their statuses
- Caller language preference
What does the dossier capture on every call?
- Person: full name, A-number (if known), country of birth
- Status: LPR, undocumented, visa holder, asylum applicant, other
- Detention: facility and date of pickup (if applicable)
- Family in the US: citizens, LPRs, others
- Prior immigration history
- Deadlines: NTA hearing date, visa expiry, asylum filing window
- Caller: relationship, callback phone, callback email, preferred time, language
- Recording and transcript in the caller's language
- Urgency score
- Summary of the call
- Recommended next step for the firm
What rules does Della follow on an immigration call?
- 01No legal advice. Della never interprets a notice, predicts an outcome or tells a caller what to file.
- 02No impersonation. Della answers in your firm's name, never claims to be human, and tells any caller who asks that she is an AI.
- 03Recording disclosure at the start of every call, set for your firm's state. Consent rules differ by state, and some are mixed: Connecticut's civil statute requires all-party consent or a recorded notice before a phone call is recorded (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-570d), while its criminal eavesdropping law turns on the consent of one party (§ 53a-187). Check your state in our call recording consent by state guide.
- 04Confidential by default. Recordings and transcripts are encrypted in transit and at rest, belong to your firm, and are kept for the retention period you set. See attorney-client privilege and AI intake.
- 05No promises. Della never implies that representation has begun or that a case will succeed.
How does Della take a immigration call?
- You forward your after-hours line to your own Della number and place a test call before you go live.
- Della answers in your firm’s name, introduces herself as Della, plays the recording disclosure for your state and runs the immigration intake.
- She scores urgency on every call. Urgent calls go to the attorney on call by email straight away.
- Every call lands in the Call Della dashboard as a dossier with a summary, recording and transcript, and a morning brief arrives by 7am.
The full walkthrough is in how AI legal intake works.
How much does immigration intake with Della cost?
Call Della has 3 plans, all month-to-month with no setup fee. Solo is $329 a month for 300 minutes, for solo lawyers. Practice is $598 a month for 600 minutes, for small and growing firms. Group is priced to your volume, for firms with more than one practice area or office, and adds a CRM webhook. Extra minutes are $0.50 each. See Call Della pricing for what every plan includes.
Where can I read more about immigration intake?
What are missed calls costing your firm?
The cost of a missed call is the fee from the immigration matter that caller would have signed. Work it out for your own firm: missed calls a month × share that are new matters × your sign rate × your average fee. The sliders start on example figures. Move them to your own numbers.
For the method and what to count as a missed call, see the full missed-call cost calculator.
What do immigration attorneys ask about Della?
Is Della's Spanish fluent or auto-translated?
Della's Spanish is a Spanish voice with an intake flow written in Spanish, not live translation from English. She detects the caller's language on the greeting and runs the whole intake in Spanish. The recording and transcript stay in Spanish, so your attorneys can review exactly what the caller said.
What about callers who speak other languages?
Della takes immigration calls in English and Spanish only. Calls in other languages, including Indigenous languages such as Mam or K'iche', are still answered and recorded, and they reach your team in the dossier list so you can arrange an interpreter for the callback. Della does not attempt an intake in a language she does not speak.
Can Della look up a detainee in the ICE locator?
No. Della cannot search the ICE Online Detainee Locator System or any government database. She records what the caller knows: the person's name, country of birth, A-number if known, where they were picked up and the facility if known. Your team confirms the details through official channels when it reviews the dossier.
What if the caller doesn't know the A-number?
Della captures everything else: full name, country of birth, where and when the person was detained, and family contacts. The dossier marks the A-number as missing so your team knows to find it. A missing A-number never stops the intake, and Della does not press a caller for details they do not have.
What about callers who are afraid to give their information?
Della explains that she is taking details for the attorney and that the firm keeps the call confidential. If a caller is still hesitant, she takes what they are willing to share and notes what is missing. She asks only what the intake needs, and she never claims to be a person; if asked, she says she is an AI.
How does Della protect confidentiality on immigration calls?
Recordings and transcripts are encrypted in transit and at rest, belong to your firm and are kept for the retention period you set. Call Della does not use your calls to train models. Our guide to attorney-client privilege and AI intake explains how confidentiality applies to prospective clients under ABA Model Rule 1.18.
What if a caller is in immediate danger?
If anyone is in immediate danger, Della tells the caller to hang up and call 911. Safety comes before intake. For a detention that has already happened, she completes the intake, scores it as urgent and emails an alert to the attorney on call, so the firm can decide that night what to do next.
- An asylum application generally must be filed within one year of the last arrival in the United States. 8 CFR 208.4, Filing the application (eCFR)
- Only 40% of law firms answered phone inquiries in the 2024 Clio secret-shopper study, down from 56% in 2019. ABA Law Practice Magazine, "Law's New First Impression: Transforming Client Intake", March/April 2025, reporting the 2024 Clio Legal Trends Report
Hear Della take a immigration intake call.
Book a 30-minute demo. We run a live immigration intake call while you listen, then walk you through the dossier.