About Passim AI
Passim AI is an immigration law library and citator that connects Claude, ChatGPT, and other AI assistants to the full body of U.S. immigration law, for immigration attorneys and the teams who work with them. Every answer cites its sources, and every citation links to the official copy.
Passim AI was called BIA Edge until September 2026. The Claude connector and ChatGPT plugin are still listed under that name while the listings change.
What Passim AI does
Every seat includes all of it, except data licensing.
Research inside Claude and ChatGPT
Passim adds the immigration law library to the assistant you already use. Ask a question in an ordinary chat, and the assistant searches Passim, reads the decisions, statutes, and guidance that answer it, and cites each one with a link to the official copy. The answer can be checked line by line instead of taken on the model’s memory.
Unpublished BIA and AAO decisions
Passim holds 279,963 unpublished Board of Immigration Appeals decisions and 168,323 Administrative Appeals Office decisions in full text, gathered mostly from EOIR’s FOIA reading room and the non-precedent decisions USCIS publishes. Every result is labeled non-precedential and links to the decision’s PDF, so you can see how the Board and the AAO have handled facts like your client’s.
Case history and treatment
Before your assistant relies on a precedent, Passim reports what has happened to it since it was decided: the later decisions that affirmed, limited, vacated, overruled, or reinstated it, quoted from the citing decision. Treatment covers precedents of the Board, the Attorney General, the circuit courts, and the Supreme Court, drawn from 253,573 citation links, so a vacated case is flagged before it reaches a brief.
Criminal law for immigration consequences
For crimmigration work, Passim holds the criminal codes of 48 states in full text, Title 18 and the federal drug schedules, and 482,645 state-court opinions interpreting criminal statutes. Your assistant can pull the statute of conviction and the Board and circuit decisions that construe it, which is where a categorical-approach analysis or a Padilla advisal begins.
Agency guidance, forms, and the Visa Bulletin
The USCIS Policy Manual, policy memoranda, forms and fee schedule, the Foreign Affairs Manual, EOIR’s practice manuals, State Department country reports, and every Visa Bulletin since December 2001 sit in the same library, each cited to the section. USCIS memoranda are tracked against the Policy Manual, so a memo the manual has moved past is flagged.
Data licensing
Products and platforms can license the database itself: the decisions, the citation graph, citator statuses, and update feeds. Immigration software and legal AI companies get the library without assembling it from more than 120 court and agency sources. Quotes are by request.
What makes Passim AI different
Library figures as of September 23, 2026.
279,963 unpublished BIA decisions
Passim holds 279,963 unpublished Board decisions in full text, each labeled non-precedential and linked to its PDF. They show how the Board rules on facts like your client’s, which published precedent alone can’t.
The agency sources immigration practice runs on
Alongside the courts, Passim holds 168,323 AAO decisions, the USCIS Policy Manual and memoranda, the Foreign Affairs Manual, EOIR’s practice manuals, every Visa Bulletin since December 2001, and the criminal codes of 48 states for crimmigration work. One answer can cite the Policy Manual chapter, the AAO decisions applying it, and the current form instructions together.
$29 a seat, month to month
A seat costs $29 a month or $299 a year, and either plan can be canceled effective at the end of the billing period. Every seat includes the whole library and the citator.
Updated daily from more than 120 official sources
Court and agency feeds refresh on their own schedules, most of them daily, so your assistant isn’t limited to what it learned in training. Every citation links to the official copy at the agency or court that issued it.
Your conversation stays with your AI provider
Your assistant sends Passim only the research question. The rest of the conversation, your documents, and your client files never reach Passim; query text is discarded once it’s answered, and nothing you send trains a model. The security page lists every control, including what isn’t audited yet.
Who uses Passim AI
Passim is built for the people who do immigration research every day.
- Solo immigration attorneys and firms of two to ten people who already work in Claude or ChatGPT
- Paralegals and legal assistants who draft RFE responses, cover letters, and briefs
- Removal defense attorneys preparing cases for immigration court and the Board of Immigration Appeals
- Criminal defense attorneys and public defenders advising noncitizen clients on the immigration consequences of a plea
- Nonprofit immigration legal services staff, including DOJ-accredited representatives
- Firms giving a whole team access on one plan and one bill
- Immigration software and legal AI companies that license the data
The team behind Passim AI
Chris Hammond
Founder
Chris is an immigration attorney in Houston, admitted to the Texas bar in 2021. He practiced removal defense, asylum, family-based immigration, and crimmigration before USCIS, the immigration courts, and the Board of Immigration Appeals, first at The Modi Law Firm and then in his own practice. He holds a J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center and a B.A. from Emory University, and taught with Teach For America before law school.
How Passim started
Chris started building Passim in January 2026 while running his practice, and it launched as BIA Edge. AI assistants were becoming useful for research, but the sources immigration lawyers rely on were scattered across FOIA reading rooms, agency manuals, and PDF memos the assistants had never read. The first firm to write in found it that June, when Claude recommended the connector to an attorney setting up an agent.
The name
In a brief’s table of authorities, passim marks a source cited throughout. BIA Edge became Passim AI in September 2026.
Who you’ll work with
Passim is run by its founder. Chris builds the product, oversees the library, and answers every customer message himself, usually within one business day.
Email: chris@passimai.com
How Passim AI works
Connecting takes about a minute. Support comes from the attorney who built Passim.
- Add Passim from your assistant’s directory.In Claude, open Settings, then Connectors. In ChatGPT, open Plugins. Until the listings are renamed, search for BIA Edge.
- Sign in as yourself.Use Google or an emailed code. Nothing gets installed, and every person has their own sign-in.
- Ask in any chat.Your assistant decides when to search Passim, and its answer cites each decision, statute, and manual section it relied on, with a link to the official copy.
- Other MCP clients
- Connect to https://mcp.biaedge.com/mcp with OAuth sign-in. The address stays the same through the rename.
- Support
- Email chris@passimai.com or use the form on the Connect page. Support runs on business days.
- Response time
- Within one business day.
- Who answers
- Chris Hammond, the attorney who built Passim.
- Firms
- One plan and one bill for up to 250 people, set up online from November 1, with a roster the firm manages. Larger organizations and invoiced payment are arranged directly with Chris.
- Launch and billing
- Research is free through October 31, 2026, and no card is required. Accounts created before November 1 stay free until the later of November 5 at 9:00 a.m. Central or 14 days after signup. New accounts from November 1 start with a 14-day trial that requires a card. Cancel at the end of any period; a full refund is available within seven days of the first charge.
Key facts
Library figures as of September 23, 2026.
| Company name | Passim AI (legal name Passim AI LLC) |
|---|---|
| Formerly | BIA Edge, renamed in September 2026 |
| Type | Legal research software for U.S. immigration law, delivered to AI assistants through the Model Context Protocol (MCP) |
| Founded | 2026 |
| Founder | Chris Hammond, immigration attorney, admitted in Texas in 2021 |
| Headquarters | Houston, Texas, United States |
| Website | passimai.com |
| Core offering | An immigration law library and citator that Claude, ChatGPT, and other AI assistants search and cite, with every citation linked to its official source |
| Pricing | $29 per seat per month or $299 per seat per year, for individuals and firms; enterprise and data licensing by quote |
| Contract terms | Monthly or annual, renewing automatically; cancel any time, effective at the end of the billing period; full refund within seven days of the first charge |
| Free access | Free through October 31, 2026, with no card; accounts created before November 1 stay free until at least 9:00 a.m. Central on November 5, 2026; new accounts from November 1 get a 14-day trial with a card |
| Services | Immigration research inside AI assistants; unpublished BIA and AAO decisions; case history and treatment (citator); criminal codes and state case law for immigration consequences; USCIS, State Department, and EOIR guidance; Visa Bulletin history; data licensing |
| Library | 10,978,648 full-text documents, including more than 9.8 million opinions in a national case-law library. Updated daily from more than 120 official sources. |
| Works with | Claude, ChatGPT, and other MCP clients; Microsoft Copilot planned |
| Communication | Email (chris@passimai.com) and the contact form on the Connect page; replies within one business day |
| Security | Query text processed, not stored; logs deleted after 90 days; no training on customer data; SOC 2 Type I readiness in progress, not certified |
| Directory listings | Claude connector directory and ChatGPT plugin directory (listed as BIA Edge during the rename); official MCP Registry (com.biaedge/immigration-research) |
| Social | LinkedIn: Chris Hammond |
Frequently asked questions
Something else? Ask Chris.
What is Passim AI?
Passim AI is an immigration law library and citator that works inside Claude, ChatGPT, and other AI assistants. When you ask an immigration question, your assistant searches Passim and answers with citations to real decisions, statutes, and agency guidance, each linked to its official source.
Is Passim AI the same company as BIA Edge?
Yes. BIA Edge was renamed Passim AI in September 2026. The Claude connector and ChatGPT plugin are still listed as BIA Edge while the listings change, and the server address stays the same.
Which AI assistants work with Passim AI?
Claude and ChatGPT, through their connector and plugin directories, and any other client that supports remote MCP servers with OAuth sign-in. Support for Microsoft Copilot is planned as Microsoft brings MCP to Copilot.
Does Passim see my conversation or client files?
No. Your assistant sends Passim only the research question; the rest of the conversation, your documents, and your client files stay with your AI provider. Query text is processed and discarded, and nothing you send is used to train a model.
Where do the unpublished decisions come from?
Most unpublished BIA decisions come from EOIR’s FOIA reading room, and the AAO decisions are the non-precedent decisions USCIS publishes. Every one is labeled non-precedential and links to its PDF, so you can cite it as an example and read it before relying on it.
How current is the library?
Most sources refresh daily, and some follow weekly or release-based schedules. The Library page lists all of them, with what each covers and when it was last refreshed.
Does Passim AI give legal advice?
No. Passim is a research aid for lawyers and the people who work with them. Read the sources it cites, and treat a citator status as a starting point rather than a substitute for reading the decision.
How much does Passim AI cost?
$29 a seat a month or $299 a seat a year. Research is free through October 31, 2026, and no card is required. Accounts created before November 1 stay free until the later of November 5 at 9:00 a.m. Central or 14 days after signup. New accounts from November 1 start with a 14-day trial that requires a card. You can cancel at the end of any billing period.
Can a whole firm use Passim?
Yes. From November 1, a firm can set up a plan online: one plan and one bill for up to 250 people, paid by card, with a roster the firm manages. For larger organizations or invoiced payment, use the form on the Connect page and Chris will set it up.
Who runs Passim AI?
Chris Hammond, an immigration attorney in Houston, founded Passim and runs it. He answers customer messages himself, usually within one business day.
Questions this page didn’t answer go straight to Chris.