Matthew L. Kolken has served as an elected Director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association's (AILA) Board of Governors.  He is a trial lawyer with experience in all aspects of United States Immigration Law, and has been an AILA member since 1997.

Mr. Kolken has received the highest AV peer rating by Martindale-Hubbell, has been named a "Super Lawyer" in Upstate New York by Super Lawyers magazine, was listed by Business First of Buffalo as being among the “Legal Elite of Western New York," and has received a "Superb" rating and "Client's Choice" award on . The New York Law Journal has recognized him as a "Lawyer Who Leads by Example" for his work providing pro bono legal services to unaccompanied refugee children.

Mr. Kolken has appeared nationally on FOX News, MSNBC and CNN, and his legal analysis has been solicited by the Washington Post's Fact Check of the immigration statements of Secretary Hillary Clinton, Presidential candidate Donald Trump, and the immigration status of First Lady Melania Trump's parents.  His opinions on immigration issues have been published in Forbes Magazine, Bloomberg, Business Insider, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and FOX News among others. He has been an invited speaker at AILA's annual conference on grounds of removability, and is the author of the Deportation and Removal Blog on , where he is a member of the advisory board of the Immigration Daily, an online immigration news periodical with more than 35,000 readers.  He is also a prominent immigration reform activist having been ranked as the most influential person on Twitter in the area of Immigration Law.  You may follow him at @mkolken.