Minami Tamaki LLP Partner Minette A. Kwok recently joined the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s (AILA) Business Immigration Committee.
AILA is the national association of over 11,000 attorneys and law professors who practice and teach immigration law. AILA Member attorneys represent U.S. families seeking permanent residence for close family members, as well as U.S. businesses seeking talent from the global marketplace. AILA Members also represent foreign students, entertainers, athletes, and asylum seekers, often on a pro bono basis. Founded in 1946, AILA is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization that provides continuing legal education, information, professional services, and expertise through its 38 chapters and over 50 national committees.
The AILA Business Immigration Committee works to address business immigration needs and concerns through a variety of outlets. The committee works closely with national staff to provide analysis, ideas, and recommendations to members of Congress working on business immigration issues. The committee also provides recommendations to various government agencies on ways to improve business immigration matters.
The committee’s focus this year will be on guiding AILA with regard to business immigration provisions of comprehensive immigration reform, and helping draft the regulatory language for any law that passes.
Minette previously served on the national AILA Board of Governors and as Chair of AILA’s Northern California Chapter.
This new role reinforces Minette’s leadership in the immigration law sector. She currently serves on the national Board of Trustees of the American Immigration Council (AIC) in Washington D.C., whose mission is to lead and develop wide reaching and forward thinking national policy on behalf of immigrants through its litigation, education and advocacy. She has also served as a Commissioner with the State Bar of California’s Board of Legal Specialization, Immigration and Nationality Law Advisory Commission; and as a liaison to the Department of Labor, Region IX and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Minette heads the immigration practice group at Minami Tamaki LLP, which focuses primarily on business immigration, representing startups and Fortune 500 companies in the IT, engineering, clean energy, and manufacturing industries, guiding employers through mergers/acquisitions, reduction in force, and phenomenal growth.
Minette has been named a Northern California Super Lawyer by Law & Politics Magazine for ten consecutive years, was selected as one of the Top 50 Female Northern California Super Lawyers, and has been awarded an AV rating by the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, the highest rating for competence and ethics issued by that publication, reserved for attorneys designated as outstanding in their field.