Quarles Client inTulsa Visa Network Featured in Wall Street Journal Article
A Wall Street Journal article told the story of Andrii Skorniakov, a Ukrainian refugee whose family settled in Tulsa, Okla., after finding a new professional opportunity in the city through the inTulsa Visa Network, a Quarles & Brady client. The inTulsa Visa Network was started last summer by inTulsa, a nonprofit with the objective of linking skilled people with businesses around the Tulsa region, and the George Kaiser Family Foundation.
A Quarles team led by Timothy D’Arduini, a Washington-based member of the firm’s Immigration & Mobility team, provides immigration counsel for the program. Other team members include attorneys Grant Sovern, Lynn O’Brien, Andrew Kuntz, Nick Lowrey and Ryan Patterson, as well as paralegals Zaynah Craven, Tiffany Melgar, Serena Prammanasudh, Megan Sanquist and Qian Wang. The team’s work in support of inTulsa Visa Network also has involved the firm’s national pro bono partner, Michael Levey, and its pro bono director, Dawn Caldart.
An excerpt from the Wall Street Journal article:
The program is an offshoot of a local tech-industry recruitment organization called inTulsa, which recruits high-tech workers from other parts of the U.S.
Timothy C. D’Arduini, a partner at the law firm Quarles & Brady LLP who works with the inTulsa Visa Network, said he believes the initiative is the first of its kind to help sponsor and refer immigrants to employers under the Uniting for Ukraine program.
The Tulsa group has so far approved 15 Ukrainians and their families to move to Tulsa, six of whom have been hired by local companies. It is planning to expand the effort to highly skilled immigrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua who are eligible to be sponsored by Americans, Mr. Khrapak said.