The San Francisco-based Minami Tamaki Yamauchi Kwok & Lee (MTYKL) Foundation announced in February 2016 that it has awarded a total of $100,000 to nonprofit organizations involved in immigrant rights and advocacy. The foundation awarded $10,000 to ten nonprofit organizations, most based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The MTYKL Foundation’s Immigrant Rights Initiative supports organizations advancing and protecting the rights of our vulnerable immigrant communities. The Foundation intends to support existing efforts to re-shape the national debate on issues such as DACA, family detention, new statewide legislation, and human trafficking.

“We urgently need to fight back against the madness of racist insults and demeaning attacks on immigrants in this country,” said MTYKL Foundation director Minette Kwok. “The hostility is aggravated by inflammatory comments by demagogues using immigrants to advance their own political aspirations.”

Through this initiative, the MTYKL Foundation is encouraging the grantees to explore opportunities to collaborate with one another to achieve the greatest impact in combatting this dangerous anti-immigrant trend undermining the charitable and democratic values of our country.

The MTYKL Foundation’s Immigrant Rights Initiative is comprised of the following organizations: American Immigration Council; Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus; Asian Law Alliance; Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach; Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Hastings; Centro Legal de la Raza; Chinese for Affirmative Action; Equal Justice Society; Immigrant Legal Resource Center; and Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center.

Formed in 2014 by the founding partners of the Minami Tamaki LLP law firm, the MTYKL Foundation combined the partners’ philanthropy into a charitable nonprofit that can grow to be greater than the sum of their individual giving. Dale Minami, Donald Tamaki, Brad Yamauchi, Minette Kwok, and Jack W. Lee are the Foundation’s founders and directors.

For more information, visit http://MTYKL.org.