American Immigration Lawyers Association

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
237085097
IRS 990 coverage
2010–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025
Location
Washington, DC, USA
Phone
2025077600
Rating confidence
Limited

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$22,679,362
Expenses
$20,743,823
Assets
$38,721,419
Liabilities
$18,457,475

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

97 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • BENJAMIN JOHNSON (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)
  • JEFF JOSEPH (PRESIDENT)
  • ALEXIS AXELRAD (PRESIDENT-ELECT)
  • JACQUELINE WATSON (FIRST VICE PRESIDENT)
  • REKHA SHARMA-CRAWFORD (SECOND VICE PRESIDENT)
  • KELLI JO STUMP (IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT)

Highest reported compensation

  • BENJAMIN JOHNSON (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR): $359,211 total reported compensation
  • GRACE WOODS (CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER): $277,507 total reported compensation
  • KAY CIESLA (SR. DIR., GOV & LEADERSHIP STRATEGY): $247,486 total reported compensation

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

The american immigration lawyers association (aila) was established to promote justice, advocate for fair and reasonable immigration law and policy, advance the quality of immigration and nationality law and practice, and enhance the professional development of its members.

What it reported doing in 2025

Educational resources: aila's focus continued to be on enhancing the quality and value of our members' learning experience, while also evaluating program effectiveness and expanding access to essential materials. Aila is a major legal publisher dedicated solely to immigration law and practice, with over 39 publications to guide members through this ever-changing field of law. This includes the aila law journal, a member benefit that is produced in partnership with full court press and that was accessed by members over 3,843 times in 2025. Aila's in-person and virtual conferences, web seminars, webcasts, and video roundtables provide members with a diversified portfolio of learning options led by experienced immigration law practitioners. Aila's e-learning site provides members with additional e-learning opportunities as well in the form of live and prerecorded online courses. Some learning options provide unique opportunities to hear from representatives of various government agencies that regulate immigration law and policy. The offerings for 2025 provided a plethora of continuing legal education (cle)-eligible programming including the annual conference which offered comprehensive fundamentals track as well as advanced tracks covering the main areas of immigration, as well as programming to assist lawyers in running their practices including wellness and technology. Aila also provided a wealth of online education resources as part of membership including video roundtables and seminar recordings. Aila's website, aila.org, contains over 44,859 immigration-related documents in the info net research library, making it one of the primary benefits of aila membership. Aila link is aila's subscription-based immigration law research database, with fully searchable access to the resources essential for practicing immigration law. In addition, all aila members received complimentary access to the fast case research library, a searchable database of federal court and board of immigration appeals decisions. Aila's flagship daily e-newsletter, aila8, allows readers to peruse the top 8 immigration news items of the day in 8 minutes or less. In 2025, aila delivered over 100 education events in various formats and published 12 new publications, most of which were offered in both print and digital formats.

Operating model

Revenue model
Earned-program. 84% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
Distribution model
Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent spending detail to tell whether the nonprofit works directly or through others.

The verdict

- The available evidence is not sufficient to produce an overall rating for this filing. This is not a warning sign.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: NotEnoughData
  • Transparency & Controls: 70
  • Accountability: 95
  • Sustainability: 47
  • Growth: 60

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: Limited
  • Program expense ratio: Limited
  • Fundraising efficiency: Limited

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: 3 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 50
    • Compensation committee: Pass
    • Independent consultant: Missing
    • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
    • Written employment contract: Missing
    • Compensation survey or study: Pass
    • Board or committee approval: Pass
  • Foreign activity oversight: Scored; rating input score 0
  • Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 76th percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 8 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 89
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: Pass
    • Other executive compensation review process: Fail
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Pass
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 8.5%; rating input score 54; 54th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.87; rating input score 50; 50th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.48; rating input score 27; 27th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 8.7%; rating input score 31; 31st percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: Limited
  • Revenue growth: 3.6% per year; rating input score 100; 28th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 1.7% per year; rating input score 100; 12th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: Financial trends and filed revenue, expense, asset, and liability detail
  • Governance: 90 of 90 board members independent · 8 of 9 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 5 filed program accomplishments
  • Leadership: top reported pay $359K · 97 people listed · 3 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
  • Highest-paid contractors: 5 contractors listed · $2.7M reported
  • Consistency: 14 of 14 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 9 filed schedules · includes major donors, foreign activity, grants, and executive pay
  • Filing history: 16 filing years from 2010 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 8 filed money-flow records
  • Related organizations: 2 filed related-organization links
  • Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
  • People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
  • Staff and benefit plans: Retirement and health plans the organization files with the Department of Labor, and the people in them.

Key Signals

Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.

  • High — Transparency & Controls: Foreign activity oversight scored 0/100.
  • Review — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 54/100.
  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Other executive compensation review process not reported.
  • Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 50/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 27/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 31/100.