iPhone and Android Apps Take on Immigrant Rights

More iPhone and Android apps are being made that deal with issues like immigration. (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images) (2013 Getty Images)

Want to know the rights entitled to undocumented immigrants? There’s an app for that.

With apps for everything from finding a date to 3-D maps, it seemed inevitable, if perhaps a bit unusual, that apps would start popping up that deal with immigrant rights.

One of the latest on this growing list – which includes everything from border crossing times to answers in the U.S. citizenship test – is "Derechos Herencia"- an app that gives information on the rights of immigrants in both Spanish and English.

The apps’ creator, Deyvid Morales, was inspired by his own experience with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In the country without any documents, Morales was arrested and detained by the U.S. Border Patrol in June of last year.

For Morales, a college student pondering a future as a lawyer, the experience showed him how so few of his peers know the rights afforded to them.

“That’s when I knew something had to be done,” Morales told Fox News Latino. “There’s other immigrations apps, but they are not in Spanish or about knowing your rights.”

Launched in November, the app has been both physically and financially demanding for Morales.

“Even though it was hard,” he said. "I knows it’s worth it.”

Working with two lawyers to verify that the information on the app is accurate, for a while Morales was not sure that Apple would approve the project.

“The waiting process was stressful.”

The free app has been downloaded by over 2,000 users.

But not everyone thinks the apps are useful.

The anti-illegal immigrant group, United Patriots of America, said apps that help undocumented immigrants should not be accessible to the public.

“Undocumented immigrants have no rights,” founder Ron Bass told Fox News Latino. “Facebook has it wrong, the president has it wrong, and the media has it wrong.”

Despite what critics say, the growing number of Latinos using smartphones makes it likely that more apps will be created dealing with these types of issues.

According to a March 2012 Nielsen study, 57.3 percent of Latinos are using smart phones.

“I know a lot of Latinos use their phones and not a computer to access the Internet,” Lizett  Arias, of the DREAMers of Virginia, told Fox News Latino.

A report published by Mobile Future and the Hispanic Institute shows that Latinos are 17 percent more likely to use cell phones to access the Internet.

Arias said she had never heard of any immigrant rights apps, but she thinks the idea is “perfect.”