Boston-based Build has launched The Immies, the first national awards program dedicated exclusively to immigration attorneys. The inaugural ceremony will take place on June 17 at the AILA Annual Conference in San Diego, with a virtual stream available for those attending remotely.
The launch comes as employment-based immigration hits a particularly rough patch for U.S. companies. A $100,000 USD fee on H-1B petitions filed outside the U.S., introduced in September 2025, has significantly raised the cost of international hiring.
And, in January 2026, executive action suspended immigrant visa proceedings for nationals of 75 countries, affecting an estimated half of all legal immigration to the U.S. Green card backlogs for workers from India and China stretch for decades in some employment categories, and the Board of Immigration Appeals has issued a record number of decisions since January last year, each one a new variable attorneys have to absorb on behalf of their clients.
For startups and tech companies navigating all of this, immigration counsel isn’t a nice-to-have – it’s the difference between keeping a critical hire and losing them.
The Immies are built around ten award categories spanning the full spectrum of immigration law practice: legal innovation, policy advocacy, outstanding RFE responses, breakthrough advocacy, paralegal excellence, cross-firm collaboration, and a People’s Choice Award voted on directly by the broader community, including foreign nationals and employers.
Nominations are open to anyone in the immigration community – firms, companies, service providers and foreign nationals – through May 30. The nomination process takes approximately two minutes.
Build was founded by Danielle Goldman, whose father is an immigration attorney. The company operates cap-exempt H-1B, J-1, and O-1 programs for global talent and U.S. employers, and was built on the success of Build Fellowships by Open Avenues – one of the country’s few nationwide cap-exempt H-1B fellowships.
The U.S. is projected to need an additional one million STEM professionals by 2033, and immigration attorneys are the people making it possible for American companies to compete for that talent today.
Featured image: Jennifer Bonauer via Unsplash+
Disclosure: This article mentions clients of an Espacio portfolio company.