Episode 92

full
Published on:

4th Aug 2025

Paper Planes and Brain Drain: America's Medieval Immigration Lottery is Bleeding Talent

Every year, America educates the world's brightest minds—then kicks them out. Immigration attorney Melissa Harms exposes how our archaic H-1B visa system forces Silicon Valley companies to mail paper applications like it's 1925. With only 85,000 visas for hundreds of thousands of applicants, Stanford PhDs have the same 25% lottery odds as entry-level workers. Meanwhile, $44 billion in international student investment flees to countries that actually want global talent. This isn't immigration policy—it's economic sabotage.

Timestamps:

  • (00:00) Introduction and Episode Overview
  • (01:14) The Broken Immigration System: $44 Billion Brain Drain
  • (01:50) Meet Melissa Harms: 25 Years Fighting Immigration Bureaucracy
  • (02:41) Visa System Challenges: When CEOs Can't Get Visas
  • (05:54) The H-1B Visa Dilemma: Medieval Lottery for Modern Talent
  • (11:17) Student Visas and the Lottery System: 9 Tries, No Success


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Transcript
Jerremy Newsome:

The people want to know Conley.

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What are we talking about today?

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Dave Conley: In this week's episode of

Solving America's Problems, we examine

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the outdated structures crippling our

immigration system, where businesses and

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universities invest billions, training

and educating cutting edge global talent

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only to face an immigration system so old

it forces Silicon Valley to mail paper

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applications like its 1925, not 2025.

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At the heart of these issues are

politicians unable or unwilling to

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change laws in 40 years, companies

desperately trying to hire Stanford PhD,

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curing cancer have the same 25% chance

as anyone else, and your best sales

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person from Canada, or entrepreneur from

Europe, starting the next great company.

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Have no chance at all.

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Our guest, Melissa Harms brings 25

years of experience as an attorney on

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the front lines of immigration law.

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She helps fortune five hundreds,

startups, universities, and biotech

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labs navigate the broken bureaucracy

and inefficient government systems

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driving America's innovation overseas.

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She's taught immigration courses at Cal

State and the University of California,

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and speaks nationally for the American

Immigration Lawyers Association on

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navigating visa challenges to retain

top talent and drive economic growth.

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And that's this week on solving America's

problems, paper planes, and brain drain.

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America's talent crisis

with Melissa harms.

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Jerremy Newsome: Every year, America

educates the world's brightest minds.

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Then we kick them out.

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International students pump 44 billion

into our economy, but we hand them

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diplomas with deportation notices.

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Meanwhile, companies from Silicon

Valley to Main Street follow every rule,

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pay every fee, but still can't fill

all the jobs they desperately need.

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What's the result?

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Cities from Beijing to Berlin are thinking

us for the best talent in the world.

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I'm Jerremy Alexander Newsom with

my co-host Dave Conley, and this

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is solving America's Problems.

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Today we have Melissa Harms 25 years as an

immigration attorney on the front lines.

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the one CEOs call when the Visa

system threatens their best people

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Silicon Valley to University Labs.

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She knows exactly where this

thing is broken, and we're

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gonna be discussing that.

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Melissa, welcome to the show.

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Melissa Harms: Thanks, Jerremy.

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I'm not sure I can say

exactly where it's broken.

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It's broken in many places.

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I don't have, if I had the recipe to

fix this, I'd be making a lot more money

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than I am right now, that's for sure.

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Jerremy Newsome: You at least know

all the things that are broken, or

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Melissa Harms: I can, yes,

I can tell you it's broken.

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Maybe not how to fix it.

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Jerremy Newsome: That's okay.

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That, the good news is we're

gonna have a conversation.

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We get to use your ideas and your

thoughts and your beliefs, and

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Dave's whimsical concepts of how

to change and make adaptations.

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That's why we're here.

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Lemme throw this at you, 25 years

Melissa, helping businesses and

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universities navigate immigration.

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Did you know in law school that you wanted

to do employment and immigration law?

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Melissa Harms: Yes and no.

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I did initially start out in employment

law really thinking I wanted to

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get into employment discrimination.

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I've always been interested

in women's issues.

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I was a public policy major in college

but not so much immigration, although I

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loved travel and international cultures.

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I hadn't really been thought about

immigration and quite honestly fell

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into it after doing the big firm

route for a little while and realizing

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that's not where my heart was.

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Really wanting to pursue a

field of law where I felt like

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I could enact social change.

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While also using my analytical

skills and law degree.

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And so that's how I sort of happenstance

into immigration a few years

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after graduation from law school.

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Jerremy Newsome: And just as like a brief.

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I dunno, maybe this might be more for me.

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the heck is immigration law?

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What are you doing?

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Are you changing the policies?

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Are you working with individuals?

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Melissa Harms: That's

a really good question.

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We have a fair share of policy.

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Like we like to call them policy

walks that are working for the

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national, on the national level.

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Doing lobbying and telling, coming

up with what the fair systems are.

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We have a national group called American

Immigration Lawyers Association, which

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is about 15,000 immigration lawyers

nationwide and they're really in

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charge of doing a lot of the lobbying

work disseminating information.

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I've been involved with

them on many levels.

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Recently working with them on technology.

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And we worked with USAS on technology

for immigration which was great, but

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ultimately after the administration

change led to a whole lot of nothing,

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which is a theme that we might

continue throughout our conversation.

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But in the actual practice of immigration

law, we really have two different sectors.

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We have those who help with deportation

removal, so those are the people who

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are on the front lines of the border who

are working with undocumented workers.

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Trying to figure out some sort of

relief for them once they're in that

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pod of being unauthorized coming here

illegally or falling out of status.

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And then we also have the other pot

of immigration lawyers, which are

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the business immigration attorneys.

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And that's where I fall.

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We're the ones that work with corporations

and companies and universities to

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obtain visas for people who are here

now legally, or maybe people who are

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outside the US who we wanna bring over.

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But we generally don't touch the

pool of, that's almost like a whole

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nother field of law working in

the deportation aspect of things.

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Jerremy Newsome: But still really

fascinating because after, don't

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know, probably 12 conversations on

this topic, it would also seem that

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I think the majority of listeners,

the majority of participants, they

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feel like the biggest immigration,

at least the largest challenge.

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And from a number standpoint,

it is, like you mentioned, the

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undocumented, the asylum seekers.

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But what you're mentioning is have

the individuals who are working,

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who wanna work in a different

country, global corporations.

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And you would think that would be a

relatively straightforward process.

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what it sounds like is

that's not the case at all.

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So when CEO or university presidents

come to you, what's their top

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frustrations about bringing

international talent to America?

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Melissa Harms: I think when you

look at the corporation side,

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they're frustrated because they

can't get the workers they need.

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And our immigration system for

visas is incredibly archaic.

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The most common visa we have is

the H one B visa, and I think most

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people have heard of that now.

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There's been a lot of press about that.

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But the H one B status.

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It's only for people who have a bachelor's

degree in a certain field, and the

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job requires a degree in that field.

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And over the years, without any sort

of legislation or rulemaking U-S-C-I-S

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has narrowed that definition to be

only, it only really benefits those

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who have, let's say, a chemistry

degree and they're gonna be a chemist.

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But in the business world in fact, they

came out with a proposed rule a few years

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ago that says we don't consider business

degrees to be specialized degrees.

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So if you're looking at,

you come out and you are.

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You started a company and you're A CEO,

they'll say you don't qualify for H

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one B because you could have a number

of different degrees to be A CEO.

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You could have a degree in English,

you could have a degree in marketing,

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you could have a degree in finance.

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So they're really looking for the

hard science, the analytical fields

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to be eligible for H one B status.

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And that's all we've got.

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Unless you're from another country,

we have very specific narrow visa

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categories for those from Australia,

Mexico Chile, Singapore, and Canada.

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But other than that's it.

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We can bring people over if

they've been employed abroad.

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But we don't have a catchall for

just the very smart person who's

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starting a company, quite frankly.

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So there's a giant hole in

the Visa framework for, what

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we see in today's economy.

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And the, we started out talking about how.

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Immigration is late 1946, and

it really is, we haven't had a

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substantive change to our business

immigration framework in many years.

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Dave Conley: H one B visas our research is

saying it's about, it's only about 85,000

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people a year that that qualify for that.

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And what would you say to folks that,

that are thinking that somehow this

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depresses American jobs like Microsoft

just fired 9,000 people, and yet they're

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also asking for a record number of visas.

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Now, personally, I don't think

those two things are like that.

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The pie isn't, finite like that.

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But what do you say to people who think

that this is something that actually hurts

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Americans rather than helps everyone?

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Melissa Harms: I think if you

believe in capitalism, the

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markets correct themselves.

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So what I will tell you is that an

HOV Visa can cost as much as $3,400.

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In just filing fees.

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And on top of that, if you wanna

have an answer in three weeks, as

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opposed to six months, you have to

pay $2,500 more to the government.

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So you're looking at 6,000 in

government fees before you pay my fees.

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So companies don't wanna do

this unless they have to.

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So I have a lot of companies, and

I'm on retainer with companies.

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That's how we generally work.

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They'll say, when we need a

Visa, we're gonna call you.

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And I have a lot of 'em that

say, you know what, we're not

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gonna do any H one B sponsorship.

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We're just, we're, we

feel like we're just.

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Gonna save those costs

and hire American workers.

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And I say, great.

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And then I get a call the next week

we've had this job open for, 10 months.

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Nobody's applied, or the people

who have applied have just been way

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underqualified and we need a visa.

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So the cost of doing these H one visas

is a, impediment to, no company's

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gonna do this unless they have to.

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So you will see them laying off

workers, but they're generally

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not gonna be laying off workers in

categories that are hard to fill.

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So they are still hiring H one B workers

when they can't find anybody else.

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And I think if you look at the way

the markets set, the demand is out

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there and immigration fluctuates.

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We have a lottery each year for people

who are getting their first H one B,

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and we do this whole archaic thing

where we sent in these petitions to

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U-S-C-I-S to be counted in the lottery.

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And the petitions were,

three inches thick.

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They cost me about $50 to FedEx.

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And we had to send in the entire

prepared petition, and then they would

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run a lottery and send back the ones

that they didn't choose at the expense.

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And I always looked at this of $10 per

application they sent back in postage.

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So this archaic way, finally,

we had an electronic system only

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within the last five years where we

now do this electronically first.

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We've been looking at the

numbers and what we've seen as.

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As the economy gets worse and there's

not as many jobs open, there are less

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applications for H one B numbers.

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So we see it fluctuate based

on the way the economy runs.

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We used to, under Clinton, the

numbers went up, so now we have,

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you're right about 85,000 total.

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Under Clinton, it was raised

to about a hundred and let's

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see, 195,000 at one point.

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And back then we didn't use them all.

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We never used them all.

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Now, in today's economy this past year

we had, let's see, 358,000 registrations.

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And they selected of that,

they selected 120,000.

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Now, this was down from last

year when we had 480,000.

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So you see the economy works in

seeing how many of these are selected.

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And I do have clients that will

put somebody in a lottery and

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then they're chosen on the lottery

and they're really excited.

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And then the company

will say, you know what?

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Hard times we don't have that job anymore.

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We're not actually gonna file the

petition for that selected person.

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We do see that happen when the

company feels like there's not a

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need for that position anymore.

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Dave Conley: In previous episodes I've

talked about how medieval this system is.

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Can you walk me through sort of the

experience of, a student and they wanna

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stay in the United States and I know,

in our research there's something like

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the OTP and you get to stay here for a

little bit, but then you like take your

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chances versus somebody who's overseas

wants to come to the United States.

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Or is there like yet another category?

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What are the different things that people

try in order to either hire in the United

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States or stay in the United States?

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Melissa Harms: So what we see is there's

really three, again, I'll use buckets

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that these H one B applicants come from.

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Majority.

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I would say, and this is totally

off the top of my head with my

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cases, 80% of those are students

who graduated from a US school.

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So these are people who come in

on a student visa, an F1 when

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they graduate from a US school.

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They get one year of OPT as you said.

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If they have a degree in a STEM field,

which is designated by their school,

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they can get an additional two years.

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So they get three years total to work in a

STEM field without the employer having to

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spend money sponsor them, sponsoring them.

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So during that time I tell employers,

if you wanna keep this person, you

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should put them in the lottery the

first year that they are eligible.

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Because about every year, and this

is a really rough estimate, you have

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about a 25% chance of selection.

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So with three years, you're not

guaranteed to get an H one B number.

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So you need to try every year.

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I have one individual who has

been through the lottery nine

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times, never been selected.

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So there are those outliers.

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So that's the, these are the

students and those are, that's

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probably the biggest bucket of who's

applying for these H one B visas.

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The people outside the US are, those

are not, they're not that many of

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them because they need to have the

exposure to the US employers to have

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the US employer feel like, Hey, I

really wanna bring this person over.

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I really wanna spend this, five to

$10,000 trying to hire this person.

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There's not a lot like that.

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We might have some who came here for a

little while, worked for us, employer went

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back, and now they're trying to come back.

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That might be one of or somebody

who works for an overseas

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subsidiary and wants to come here.

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Then the third bucket is people

who are here in some their

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status who wanna move to H one B.

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A lot of times that will be somebody

who's here on what we call an L one, and

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that's an intercompany transferee where

you work abroad for the company for a

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year, and then you can come here on an L.

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The L is great in many ways,

but the H is better for

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long-term green card processing.

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So some of those people are switching.

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We had people switching out of the tn,

which was for Mexicans and Canadians

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because of fear of what Trump was

gonna do with the TN visa category.

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So there's always, we always have

fear-based switching h fours, sometimes

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it's a dependent of an HMBV holder.

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They might say, I got a job and

now I wanna move into H one B.

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'cause most of the time they cannot work.

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They get to a certain point in the

Green card process for the spouse

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that they can get a work permit.

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But most of the time these spouses

of these H one B workers cannot work.

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And that's difficult, especially in the

Bay Area, to have a single income family.

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So they're trying to

get their own H one B.

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So those are the types of people who

would be applying for this H one B status.

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Jerremy Newsome: So

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Melissa Harms: It's a lot.

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I know.

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I get too technical so feel

free to tell me to dumb it down.

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Dave Conley: This is perfect because, in

order to really, we have to define these

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problems, and if people's eyes are glazing

over right now, that's a good thing.

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Because should be simple.

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That's the first thing.

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I don't know, in one of our episodes,

it's like somebody took the worst of the

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tax code, drank themselves into oblivion

and said, immigrate to the United States,

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Melissa Harms: I tell people that

clients, especially when I meet with

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new companies, I say, you really

should not need me, but you do.

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Our system is probably

the most complicated and

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archaic in the entire world.

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And quite frankly, doesn't serve

the American population well some

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of these policies I look at and

what was the policy behind this

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and who were they trying to help?

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Because it really doesn't help.

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Another thing that people might not

realize about the H one B system

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is that the employers have to say

they're paying the hire of the

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prevailing wage and the actual wage.

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For that position, in that location.

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So the reason they do that is they

say, we wanna protect US workers.

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We don't want companies to come in,

fire all their US workers and hire

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H one B workers and underpay them.

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Great intent.

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I see where that's going.

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But the way it plays out in a lot of my

cases, I can't even tell you how many, is

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that our prevailing wage is set by the,

we use this government database for wages.

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And I don't know where they

are getting their data.

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They don't even cite it.

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But it's incredibly high.

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So what happens is somebody will call me

and say, I wanna hire a software engineer.

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In Silicon Valley, and I'll say, great,

the prevailing wage for that is 240,000.

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And they say, there's no way I'm

gonna pay that person 240,000.

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I say that's the prevailing wage.

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And so they'll either A, not hire

them, or B, they'll hire them and

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pay them like twice as much as

they're paying their US workers.

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In effect, it doesn't do what it's

supposed to do, put it that way.

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I think if we had a workable wage

database that was actually accurate

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it does have a good intent behind

it, but it just doesn't work.

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Alex: The lottery's treating

cancer researchers like entry-level

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workers—25% odds for everyone.

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But that $44 billion we discussed?

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Wait till you see where it goes.

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Next up: the real costs hitting employers

and families caught in this broken system.

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About the Podcast

Solving America's Problems
Solving America’s Problems isn’t just a podcast—it’s a journey. Co-host Jerremy Newsome, a successful entrepreneur and educator, is pursuing his lifelong dream of running for president. Along the way, he and co-host Dave Conley bring together experts, advocates, and everyday Americans to explore the real, actionable solutions our country needs.

With dynamic formats—one-on-one interviews, panel discussions, and more—we cut through the noise of divisive rhetoric to uncover practical ideas that unite instead of divide. If you’re ready to think differently, act boldly, and join a movement for meaningful change, subscribe now.