Ronald
Klasko

H. Ronald Klasko (Ron) is widely recognized by businesses, universities, hospitals, scholars, investors, and other lawyers as one of the country’s leading immigration lawyers. A founding member of Klasko Immigration Law Partners, LLP, and its long time Managing Partner, as its Chairman he continues to serve as a thought leader and advocate for his clients and in the broader immigration bar. Ron has practiced immigration law exclusively over four decades.

Under his leadership, the firm has been chosen as a top immigration law firm every year for the last ten years by the highly regarded Chambers Global. Ron himself is recognized annually as being in Band 1 of immigration lawyers by Chambers Global and Tier 1 in Best Lawyers in America©. In addition, he has also been repeatedly selected for inclusion in Lawdragon’s/Human Resource Executive’s list of The Most Powerful Employment Attorneys Guide and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018.  Who’s Who Legal in Corporate Immigration named him as the most highly regarded immigration lawyer in the world.

A former National President of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), Ron is currently a member of the 2023-2024 EB-5 Investor Committee. He also served as Chair of the High Impact Litigation Committee (previously the Administrative Litigation Task Force). He served as General Counsel of AILA for three Presidents and has been a member of its Board of Governors since 1980. He has served as National Chair of AILA’s U.S. Department of Labor Liaison Committee and Business Immigration Committee, and he served as National Chair of that organization’s INS General Counsel Liaison Committee and the National Task Forces on Labor Certifications, H-1 visas, L-1 visas and Employer Sanctions. He completed five terms as Chair of the EB-5 Committee of the AILA. Ron is one of only three practicing attorneys ever honored with the AILA Founders Award for his contributions to immigration jurisprudence, and is the only person to have received this award twice. He received it in 1999, and again in 2019. 

In the area of treaty investors visas (E-2), Ron is particularly well known, having served as the lead attorney on the famous Matters of Walsh and Pollard case, which established the key precedent for E-2 visas.

At the request of members of Congress and their staffs, Ron has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary and the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform.  He has been invited to lecture and provide training to staff members and lawyers of the U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Department of State, INS General Counsel Management Conference, Immigration Judges Association and U.S. Department of Justice.  In addition, he has been an Adjunct Professor of Immigration Law at Villanova University Law School and is a frequent lecturer on immigration law subjects. 

Ron is the co-author of the two-volume Employers’ Immigration Compliance Guide (Matthew Bender 1985). He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

EB-5 Overview

Ron is one of the country’s leading lawyers representing EB-5 clients.

Ron is the chair of the firm’s EB-5 practice area. Ron represents thousands of foreign investors worldwide, over 50 approved regional centers and numerous U.S. developers and business owners who have sought his counsel in connection with using the EB-5 program to raise capital for investment projects.

Ron’s counsel has included applications to designate new regional centers; applications for approval of projects within regional centers; having projects adopted by existing regional centers; structuring projects to be EB-5 compliant; preparing template I-526 petitions; and advice on successfully marketing EB-5 projects. Ron has successfully represented many direct individual EB-5 investors, direct pooled EB-5 investors, and regional center investors.

During his five years as Chair of the EB-5 Committee of AILA, he led advocacy efforts with USCIS to improve the EB-5 program. As Chair of the Best Practices Committee of IIUSA, the association of EB-5 regional centers. Ron worked with regional centers, developers and EB-5 professionals to develop the first comprehensive list of best practices in the EB-5 industry.

One of the most prolific EB-5 bloggers, Ron is a sought-after speaker and regularly speaks on EB-5 topics around the country and around the world. Ron has been interviewed by U.S. Chinese media on numerous occasions and has been quoted in Forbes Magazine and other media on his views on EB-5 matters.