The $240,000 Problem: How Immigration Fees Create Indentured Servants

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Picking up from the visa system's wild ride, today Melissa breaks down the

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steep employer costs—like that company

forced to open a Hong Kong lab—and the

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human side, with kids fearing deportation.

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That's the real price tag

on our broken policies.

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Jerremy Newsome: And so you also teach

HR professionals about immigration.

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What are the common misconceptions

they hold about, the process or

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any individuals that might really

hurt the ability to hire talent?

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Melissa Harms: This kind of comes back

to you shouldn't need me, but you do.

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One of the things I tell them

is, before you hire anybody.

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We have certain questions you

can ask without violating any

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discrimination laws about whether

or not the person needs sponsorship.

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So before you hire somebody, come to

me and I have them give me the resume,

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the job description, and the salary.

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We also have a short questionnaire.

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We ask anybody who says they need

sponsorship to fill out so I can make

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sure there's a visa that works because

there's a lot of times where they

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wanna hire somebody and say, I'm sorry.

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There's just nothing we

can do for that person.

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So that's the first thing I

tell HR people is just talk to

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me before you extend an offer.

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And that, and it's also comes to

educating them on what can be done

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for people and what the costs are.

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A lot of times they don't

realize how much this costs.

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And I find myself in many occasions,

talking them out of hiring somebody

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because the costs are so high, they're

not gonna be able to keep them for long.

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The chances are low that their

case is gonna get approved.

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I think just having an open dialogue

with an immigration attorney is

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probably the first thing they can learn.

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Dave Conley: And so everybody pays, right?

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So the worker is in this place of

uncertainty for sometimes years.

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The businesses have to pay all these fees

and they're stuck in this uncertainty.

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Am I gonna have this person?

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Am I not?

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this is, none of this could

actually help businesses, right?

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There's no upside to this.

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Is there?

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Melissa Harms: no.

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There really isn't.

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And we have people who

aren't selected the lottery.

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These students, some of

these are PhDs from Stanford.

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I had a situation with one of my

biotech clients several years ago where

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the individual just didn't get the h.

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She had been here in F1 after her PhD,

so she had to move back to, I think they

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moved her to Hong Kong where they had an

office, opened a lab there for her, and

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then hired all the lab workers in Hong

Kong that they would've hired in the

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US if she could run her lab in the us.

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But because she could not get a

degree or could not get an H one B,

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we couldn't, she couldn't work here.

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So those are some of the things, what

we're seeing now with the current

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administration, there is something

called an Extraordinary Ability

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visa that we use for a lot of these

scientists and highly trained workers.

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And we're seeing U-S-C-I-S crack

down on those and say, this

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person isn't extraordinary, or.

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This work is not the national interest.

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Under Biden there was a sort of

streamlined approach to this, what

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we call a national interest waiver

which is a green card application

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for people in the STEM fields.

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And basically if you could prove that

your work was the national interest and

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you had a PhD in the STEM field, it was

an expedited route to this green card.

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I filed one for somebody who has a PhD

in chemical engineering and he's worked

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at a biotech company for many years.

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He has whole departments reporting

to him and they just said he

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wasn't extraordinary enough.

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So in the last 12 months, we've

seen this national interest waiver

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applications go down the tubes as well.

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I think the Biden administration

had the interest of promoting the

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economy and promoting innovation

and entrepreneurship in mind.

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I don't know what the current

administration has in mind, honestly.

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Jerremy Newsome: I've heard

people say that before.

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Melissa Harms: Yeah.

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That was about as diplomatic

as I could put it, right?

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Jerremy Newsome: That was nice.

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I like that diplomacy.

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So in regards to what you kinda mentioned,

like the different, graduates that

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are getting specific degrees, you see

some that are outside of the STEM that

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people should or could focus more on

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Melissa Harms: I think particularly

with your entrepreneurs now, some

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business schools, and I do work with,

a business school here in the Bay Area.

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Many of the top tier business schools

have been able to get their programs

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designated as STEM programs with a

business degree, which is fantastic.

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'cause then their graduates

get that three years.

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But I'm not sure how long that will last.

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I'm always scared to point out the

good things because somebody will

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listen to this and shut 'em down.

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But, if that changes, I think we have

a real hole for entrepreneurs and

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we had an international entrepreneur

rule that was so complicated and

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convoluted that immigration attorneys

just wouldn't even touch it.

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But we need something for the people

who are building the economy and

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our entrepreneurs out there, that

may not have a STEM degree but

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are still, fantastic individuals

who are going to contribute jobs.

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I think everything should be

geared towards job creation.

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And there are many visas that

have been but it's not the

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way the economy works now.

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So we need an economist to come in

and say, how can we simulate the

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US economy through immigration?

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Dave Conley: Tell me a little

bit about the penalties.

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Certainly if you're here undocumented,

particularly in areas like

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construction or farming or service

level jobs, and you're undocumented.

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There isn't that big of a penalty.

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They keep on doing it.

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I happen to live in Florida.

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It's one of the few states that

mandate, like E-Verify to hire people.

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But when it comes to legal,

immigration, people going through

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this process, what's the downside

to a business saying, ah, screw it.

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We're just going to keep this person here.

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We're just gonna keep

going in this process.

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Melissa Harms: It's a, that's

a complicated question.

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There are a number of different

types of penalties based on that.

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If you had somebody who was an H one B

and you knew that their h had expired

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and you didn't care, you just hired them.

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You have the basic i nine penalties.

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But then you have, if there's a

knowing violation you can attach

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even criminal penalties, not only the

company, but to the HR representative.

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So there are a number of different it

depends on what the degree of malicious.

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Intent was as to what

your penalties could be.

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But the simple I nine penalties

quite frankly are not that high.

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I don't have them in front of me, but

we're talking hundreds of thousands

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of dollars, which is a drop in the

bucket for a lot of these companies.

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I think the bigger issue and I think

you might be reading these reports

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and I'm not like, these are not

usually my type of clients 'cause I'm

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working with more, people who are.

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Doing highly skilled workers and they

don't have a lot of undocumented workers.

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But you'll look at these.

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I just read an article in New York

Times yesterday about a meat processing

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plant in, I think it was IL or somewhere

that had been rated and lost 70% of

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the workforce who was using E-Verify.

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So you know this, and in the owner of

the company has always been Republican.

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He voted, he actually voted in

: 2024

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potential impact on his workers

for these immigration wa raids.

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And he's gonna have to shut down

because he is lost 70% of his workforce.

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So that I think is what has a lot

of those type of employers running.

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Scared is not so much the penalties

they'll face, but if they're rated,

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what's gonna happen to their workforce

because they rely on those workers.

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Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.

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Makes sense.

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You're talking about the scale, some

of the companies just describe that.

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Is there certain companies that are just

demoralized by all of this happening

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and that have to have current employers

here that just simply cannot go and

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find any immigrants to come over?

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Melissa Harms: Again, these really

aren't the clients I'm working for.

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But I think if you look in the

restaurants and the agricultural

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fields, manufacturing, that's where

you're gonna see the hardest hit.

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I'm very close to Napa Valley and I think

that, you're gonna see a lot of these

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agricultural workers in Napa be affected.

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I think the fear is a really big part of

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What's happening now.

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There are certain companies or certain.

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I know wineries people just don't

show up 'cause they're scared

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that ICE is gonna show up there.

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There's all sorts of websites that

track where ICE is and people are

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scared to go into those communities

where they know ICE is going to be.

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And, on a personal level I see these

kids, these high school kids, or I have

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high school children, but these kids

who are scared about their parents being

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deported, what is that gonna do to me?

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That's a whole other

sector from what I do.

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But I think what, my employers and my

clients are facing is how are we gonna

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get the talent we need and how do we

continue to be innovative and develop

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the drugs that we wanna develop or,

come up with these new technologies

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without the best and the brightest.

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And America's starting to sound

like a place that doesn't welcome

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the best and the brightest.

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Dave Conley: It's not, it's

something I had from a personal.

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Somebody in my life was that their visa

was through their employer and in a

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way, she was trapped with the employer.

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Melissa Harms: Yes.

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Dave Conley: So tell me about that.

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And what are some of the downsides

to having this employee based

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Melissa Harms: Yeah.

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That's hard, it's almost indentured

servitude because you get hired

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by this employer and the life

cycle of a foreign worker.

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They're hired maybe as a

student with that OPT and then

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they get they H one B lottery.

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They work with the employer.

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Now they can go work for another employer.

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But that new employer has to do the h

again, they don't have to go through the

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lottery, but they have to pay all those

ridiculous fees we just talked about.

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So that's what they have to

do if they leave companies.

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Now, the scary part for them

is what if they get laid off?

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They don't have a job anymore.

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They essentially have a 60 day

grace period to find a new job

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without having to leave the us.

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Which, if you're a senior level

person, that's just not easily done.

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So that's very scary.

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And then, the other side of this is

that if they wanna stay here past

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that six years, so you get a total

of six years in H one B status.

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If you wanna stay here, if you start

having kids here and you develop

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your professional network here.

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You have to have the company file a

green card for you and you talk about

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archaic, where, I could get into that.

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But that's where the company

has to recruit and prove there's

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a shortage of US workers.

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And they have all these things

they have to do, these recruitment

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steps they have to take.

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One of which is putting two Sunday

newspaper ads, which if you'll go pick

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up a Sunday newspaper, the Chronicle

or wherever you are, New York Times

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has them, I would say 80% of those

newspaper help wanted ads are for

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the green card process for a foreign

national, because they have to be done.

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No, I'm serious because I

know what they look like.

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We have to write 'em a certain way

so I can pick up the newspaper.

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I'm like that's a perma.

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That's a perma.

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That's a perma.

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So they have to go out and

recruit for this position.

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And then once they go through this.

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Really two year process of just getting

the thing on file or getting it approved.

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They have more steps.

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They have to wait for a green card

number to come up because we have only a

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certain number of green cards per year.

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Like we have H one Bs per year.

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So they're waiting and waiting

and the whole time they're

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stuck with that employer.

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They do get to a certain point

very far in the process where they

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could change employers, but it's

years and years down the line.

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So now that they've had this employer

file for them and spend all this

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money and get this approved to a

certain point, they're still stuck

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with that employer and that job.

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That job has to remained

somewhat the same.

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You can allow for a little bit of career

progression, but if you get hired as a.

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Analyst and now you're

running the whole department.

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That's a completely different job and you

need now a whole new recruitment process

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and proving shortage and all of that.

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So that's where it gets really bad.

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And that's where you really talk

about the indenture servitude.

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'cause these employees have to stay with

the same employer for so many years.

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Dave Conley: And she couldn't like at

some point in the process, like she

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wasn't allowed to leave the United

States for years, and then she needed all

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these like invasive like medical tests.

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And I'm like, oh, come on.

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Is that real?

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Melissa Harms: yeah.

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We have to, they have to do medical exams.

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There's a certain period of time where

they can't leave because of certain

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paperwork we're filing if they don't

have an underlying non-immigrant visa.

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I find it hilarious that we've

got, this health and human services

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secretary who doesn't want vaccines,

but our four nationals have to have

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three COVID vaccines and everything

else under the sun before they

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can become a green card holder.

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So it's, yeah, it is a very long, very

expensive process from start to finish.

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Just to give you an idea on the, and this

is something that shocks a lot of people

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for these employment-based green cards.

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So if you're being sponsored by

an employer and you don't have a

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family member to sponsor you we

have that, I think it's 144,000

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per year only for green cards.

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And it's broken down by country of

birth and your preference category.

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And so the country of birth was that

we wanted to have a diverse country.

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So we don't want one single country

to, to have all the green cards, right?

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So the countries with the highest

demand have the longest waits.

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So if you're from China, for example,

right now the visa bullets and

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that we get every month, if you're

from China actually India's worse.

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So if you're from India you could

be waiting 12 years for a grain card

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If your employer sponsors you.

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Yeah.

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Jerremy Newsome: whoa.

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Melissa Harms: So it's,

it's just a crazy system.

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And it also seems very unfair.

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'cause you're from India and you wait

12 years, but if you were born in

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Pakistan, you wait a year and a half.

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And that's all based on demand.

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That's the whole point.

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And there's been a lot of different

proposals in Congress to eliminate

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the per country limitations.

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None of which have succeeded.

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Nothing succeeds in Congress about

immigration anymore, but this one has

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been one that a lot of people have

advocated for, to make it more fair.

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But yeah it's definitely a broken system.

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Jerremy Newsome: Just dancing

around that for a second.

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The latest federal spending

bill had major fee increases.

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Do you see any of these rising costs

throughout the system affecting

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more Visa business sponsorships?

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Melissa Harms: Yeah, the Visa

fees went up dramatically.

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In 2024, there was a new fee increase.

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And we have now we have a $600 asylum

fee that's added on to every single

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case we file 300 if you're from a small

employer that has less than 26 employees.

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That was completely new.

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That was supposedly to fund

the asylum program, and this

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is just for H one B workers.

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And then the fees themselves went

up, I think 70% for an H one B.

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So the fees have gone up dramatically.

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Like I said, a lot of these

employers really need these people.

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So that Delta was not enough to

dissuade them just from the filing

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fees when you're talking H one Bs.

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But, I think the fees just

incredibly start to get more and

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more unbearable as things progress.

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Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.

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Melissa Harms: it's expensive.

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Jerremy Newsome: Yep.

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Dave Conley: fees go?

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Do they fund what is it, the U-S-C-I-S

or what, or they just go into the ether?

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Melissa Harms: So the, there's a filing

fee that's supposed to just fund the

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cost of adjudicating the petition.

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U-S-C-A-S is supposedly self-sufficient.

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It's supposed to generate its own fees.

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Then there's a fee, there's a $500

fraud fee, which is what it's called.

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And that goes to this FDNS

unit, which is fraud detection,

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national security, I think.

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And they go out actually, and

this is a very active unit.

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They go out to employers and will

say, okay, you filed an H one B

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petition on behalf of Joe Schmo.

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I wanna talk to Joe Schmo and

make sure he's doing what you

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said he did in the petition.

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And I've had many of my clients have

been visited by those fraud officers

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and that $500 fee funds that department.

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We've never had a problem with the fraud

officers because as I'm lucky to have

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clients who are actually employing people

in the capacity that they say they are.

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And then there's a $1,500 education

retraining fee that is supposed

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to go back into US education.

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I've never, really tracked that fund

that's part of the H one B fees.

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: 00:15:21

But that was the intent of that

was let's educate US workers so

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: 00:15:24

they can do these jobs that we're

getting forward workers to do.

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: 00:15:27

And that's actually one of my

personal feelings about the whole

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: 00:15:31

process is that we do need to look

at our education system because we're

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: 00:15:35

not churning out the science, the

employees that our employers need.

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: 00:15:39

So there should be a better look

at our education systems and.

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: 00:15:43

I can get on my high horse, California

and its schools and how expensive it is

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: 00:15:47

to go to the California universities and

how hard it is to get into a University

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: 00:15:51

of California or even a Cal State School.

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: 00:15:54

They need to look at giving more money

to education here in the us for sure.

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: 00:15:58

Jerremy Newsome: Or at

least doing it correctly.

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: 00:16:00

Melissa Harms: Yes.

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: 00:16:01

Jerremy Newsome: Yeah,

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: 00:16:02

Melissa Harms: Yeah.

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: 00:16:02

Jerremy Newsome: lot of money.

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: 00:16:03

I mean that, that was why

Dave, me and Dave asked that

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: 00:16:05

question once in an episode.

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: 00:16:06

Where's the money going?

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: 00:16:08

Melissa Harms: Oh, it is a,

it's a, and let's trace it.

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: 00:16:10

I'd love to see where,

all those H one B fees go.

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: 00:16:13

Yeah.

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: 00:16:14

Our government is really good about

being transparent in immigration.

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: 00:16:17

Let me tell you that.

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: 00:16:18

Jerremy Newsome: Oh, the best

we're number one for sure.

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: 00:16:22

Alex: From massive fines to families

torn apart, this segment hits

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: 00:16:26

hard on immigration's hidden toll.

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: 00:16:29

But solutions are coming—tomorrow,

we explore reforms, AI fixes, and

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: 00:16:33

shifting to an abundance mindset.

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: 00:16:35

You won't want to miss

how we turn this around.