Episode 150

full
Published on:

27th Dec 2025

America’s Brain Drain: H-1B Lottery Chaos (Full)

A Stanford PhD working on cancer cures has the exact same 25% chance in the H-1B lottery as someone with a random bachelor’s. Jerremy Alexander Newsome, Dave Conley, and 25-year immigration attorney Melissa Harms rip apart the outdated visa system that’s pushing America’s best minds to Canada, Europe, and Asia. From insane employer costs to endless backlogs and penalty traps, this episode shows exactly why we’re losing the global talent war—and why it’s getting worse fast.

Timestamps:

  • (00:00) Immigration Nation – Paper planes and brain drain intro
  • (01:07) Episode Overview – What’s actually broken
  • (02:22) Broken System – First look at the mess
  • (02:58) Meet Melissa Harms – 25-year immigration attorney
  • (03:48) Visa Challenges – Where it all starts falling apart
  • (07:02) H-1B Dilemma – The lottery nightmare exposed
  • (12:25) Student Visa Lottery – Same 25% shot for PhDs and average grads
  • (17:29) Employer Pain – Sky-high costs and red tape
  • (22:02) Penalties & Risks – One mistake = massive fines
  • (25:57) Green Card Hell – Years of waiting
  • (30:35) Fee Hikes – Who’s really paying for this
  • (33:36) Fixes & Thoughts – What could actually work
  • (35:06) Reform Talk – Balancing innovation and borders
  • (36:06) OPT to H-1B Jump – The broken student-to-worker bridge
  • (37:03) University Crisis – Foreign enrollment collapse
  • (38:18) State Wins – What some places are getting right
  • (43:51) Small Biz Struggle – Hiring global talent on a budget
  • (45:38) Point Systems – Why others are eating our lunch
  • (49:37) AI in Immigration – Tech that could save us
  • (54:57) Abundance vs Scarcity – The mindset killing us
  • (58:19) Key Takeaways – What we just learned

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Transcript
Alex:

Solving America’s Problems — where Jerremy and Dave just learned

Alex:

that a Stanford PhD who’s spent seven years in the US, paid taxes,

Alex:

and is literally curing cancer… has the exact same 25% lottery shot at

Alex:

staying here as any random bachelor’s degree holder filing from overseas.

Alex:

Melissa Harms laid it out cold: every spring, USCIS runs a literal

Alex:

random drawing for 85,000 H1B visas.

Alex:

Last year 358,000 people registered.

Alex:

This year it dropped, but still triple the cap.

Alex:

One of her clients — a biotech star — lost the lottery nine straight times.

Alex:

Another got selected, then laid off before the paperwork even

Alex:

landed because the economy turned.

Alex:

And when the best minds finally give up?

Alex:

They don’t go home.

Alex:

They open the same lab in Hong Kong or Toronto — and hire everyone there instead.

Alex:

Jerremy and Dave sat there stunned as Melissa said the quiet part

out loud:

America is now actively shipping its own brain drain overseas…

Jerremy Newsome:

The people want to know Conley.

Jerremy Newsome:

What are we talking about today?

Dave Conley:

In this week's episode of Solving America's Problems, we examine

Dave Conley:

the outdated structures crippling our immigration system, where businesses and

Dave Conley:

universities invest billions, training and educating cutting edge global talent

Dave Conley:

only to face an immigration system so old it forces Silicon Valley to mail paper

Dave Conley:

applications like its 1925, not 2025.

Dave Conley:

At the heart of these issues are politicians unable or unwilling to

Dave Conley:

change laws in 40 years, companies desperately trying to hire Stanford PhD,

Dave Conley:

curing cancer have the same 25% chance as anyone else, and your best sales

Dave Conley:

person from Canada, or entrepreneur from Europe, starting the next great company.

Dave Conley:

Have no chance at all.

Dave Conley:

Our guest, Melissa Harms brings 25 years of experience as an attorney on

Dave Conley:

the front lines of immigration law.

Dave Conley:

She helps fortune five hundreds, startups, universities, and biotech

Dave Conley:

labs navigate the broken bureaucracy and inefficient government systems

Dave Conley:

driving America's innovation overseas.

Dave Conley:

She's taught immigration courses at Cal State and the University of California,

Dave Conley:

and speaks nationally for the American Immigration Lawyers Association on

Dave Conley:

navigating visa challenges to retain top talent and drive economic growth.

Dave Conley:

And that's this week on solving America's problems, paper planes, and brain drain.

Dave Conley:

America's talent crisis with Melissa harms.

Jerremy Newsome:

Every year, America educates the world's brightest minds.

Jerremy Newsome:

Then we kick them out.

Jerremy Newsome:

International students pump 44 billion into our economy, but we hand them

Jerremy Newsome:

diplomas with deportation notices.

Jerremy Newsome:

Meanwhile, companies from Silicon Valley to Main Street follow every rule,

Jerremy Newsome:

pay every fee, but still can't fill all the jobs they desperately need.

Jerremy Newsome:

What's the result?

Jerremy Newsome:

Cities from Beijing to Berlin are thinking us for the best talent in the world.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm Jerremy Alexander Newsom with my co-host Dave Conley, and this

Jerremy Newsome:

is solving America's Problems.

Jerremy Newsome:

Today we have Melissa Harms 25 years as an immigration attorney on the front lines.

Jerremy Newsome:

the one CEOs call when the Visa system threatens their best people

Jerremy Newsome:

Silicon Valley to University Labs.

Jerremy Newsome:

She knows exactly where this thing is broken, and we're

Jerremy Newsome:

gonna be discussing that.

Jerremy Newsome:

Melissa, welcome to the show.

Melissa Harms:

Thanks, Jerremy.

Melissa Harms:

I'm not sure I can say exactly where it's broken.

Melissa Harms:

It's broken in many places.

Melissa Harms:

I don't have, if I had the recipe to fix this, I'd be making a lot more money

Melissa Harms:

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

Jerremy Newsome:

You at least know all the things that are broken, or

Melissa Harms:

I can, yes, I can tell you it's broken.

Melissa Harms:

Maybe not how to fix it.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's okay.

Jerremy Newsome:

That, the good news is we're gonna have a conversation.

Jerremy Newsome:

We get to use your ideas and your thoughts and your beliefs, and

Jerremy Newsome:

Dave's whimsical concepts of how to change and make adaptations.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's why we're here.

Jerremy Newsome:

Lemme throw this at you, 25 years Melissa, helping businesses and

Jerremy Newsome:

universities navigate immigration.

Jerremy Newsome:

Did you know in law school that you wanted to do employment and immigration law?

Melissa Harms:

Yes and no.

Melissa Harms:

I did initially start out in employment law really thinking I wanted to

Melissa Harms:

get into employment discrimination.

Melissa Harms:

I've always been interested in women's issues.

Melissa Harms:

I was a public policy major in college but not so much immigration, although I

Melissa Harms:

loved travel and international cultures.

Melissa Harms:

I hadn't really been thought about immigration and quite honestly fell

Melissa Harms:

into it after doing the big firm route for a little while and realizing

Melissa Harms:

that's not where my heart was.

Melissa Harms:

Really wanting to pursue a field of law where I felt like

Melissa Harms:

I could enact social change.

Melissa Harms:

While also using my analytical skills and law degree.

Melissa Harms:

And so that's how I sort of happenstance into immigration a few years

Melissa Harms:

after graduation from law school.

Jerremy Newsome:

And just as like a brief.

Jerremy Newsome:

I dunno, maybe this might be more for me.

Jerremy Newsome:

the heck is immigration law?

Jerremy Newsome:

What are you doing?

Jerremy Newsome:

Are you changing the policies?

Jerremy Newsome:

Are you working with individuals?

Melissa Harms:

That's a really good question.

Melissa Harms:

We have a fair share of policy.

Melissa Harms:

Like we like to call them policy walks that are working for the

Melissa Harms:

national, on the national level.

Melissa Harms:

Doing lobbying and telling, coming up with what the fair systems are.

Melissa Harms:

We have a national group called American Immigration Lawyers Association, which

Melissa Harms:

is about 15,000 immigration lawyers nationwide and they're really in

Melissa Harms:

charge of doing a lot of the lobbying work disseminating information.

Melissa Harms:

I've been involved with them on many levels.

Melissa Harms:

Recently working with them on technology.

Melissa Harms:

And we worked with USAS on technology for immigration which was great, but

Melissa Harms:

ultimately after the administration change led to a whole lot of nothing,

Melissa Harms:

which is a theme that we might continue throughout our conversation.

Melissa Harms:

But in the actual practice of immigration law, we really have two different sectors.

Melissa Harms:

We have those who help with deportation removal, so those are the people who

Melissa Harms:

are on the front lines of the border who are working with undocumented workers.

Melissa Harms:

Trying to figure out some sort of relief for them once they're in that

Melissa Harms:

pod of being unauthorized coming here illegally or falling out of status.

Melissa Harms:

And then we also have the other pot of immigration lawyers, which are

Melissa Harms:

the business immigration attorneys.

Melissa Harms:

And that's where I fall.

Melissa Harms:

We're the ones that work with corporations and companies and universities to

Melissa Harms:

obtain visas for people who are here now legally, or maybe people who are

Melissa Harms:

outside the US who we wanna bring over.

Melissa Harms:

But we generally don't touch the pool of, that's almost like a whole

Melissa Harms:

nother field of law working in the deportation aspect of things.

Jerremy Newsome:

But still really fascinating because after, don't

Jerremy Newsome:

know, probably 12 conversations on this topic, it would also seem that

Jerremy Newsome:

I think the majority of listeners, the majority of participants, they

Jerremy Newsome:

feel like the biggest immigration, at least the largest challenge.

Jerremy Newsome:

And from a number standpoint, it is, like you mentioned, the

Jerremy Newsome:

undocumented, the asylum seekers.

Jerremy Newsome:

But what you're mentioning is have the individuals who are working,

Jerremy Newsome:

who wanna work in a different country, global corporations.

Jerremy Newsome:

And you would think that would be a relatively straightforward process.

Jerremy Newsome:

what it sounds like is that's not the case at all.

Jerremy Newsome:

So when CEO or university presidents come to you, what's their top

Jerremy Newsome:

frustrations about bringing international talent to America?

Melissa Harms:

I think when you look at the corporation side,

Melissa Harms:

they're frustrated because they can't get the workers they need.

Melissa Harms:

And our immigration system for visas is incredibly archaic.

Melissa Harms:

The most common visa we have is the H one B visa, and I think most

Melissa Harms:

people have heard of that now.

Melissa Harms:

There's been a lot of press about that.

Melissa Harms:

But the H one B status.

Melissa Harms:

It's only for people who have a bachelor's degree in a certain field, and the

Melissa Harms:

job requires a degree in that field.

Melissa Harms:

And over the years, without any sort of legislation or rulemaking U-S-C-I-S

Melissa Harms:

has narrowed that definition to be only, it only really benefits those

Melissa Harms:

who have, let's say, a chemistry degree and they're gonna be a chemist.

Melissa Harms:

But in the business world in fact, they came out with a proposed rule a few years

Melissa Harms:

ago that says we don't consider business degrees to be specialized degrees.

Melissa Harms:

So if you're looking at, you come out and you are.

Melissa Harms:

You started a company and you're A CEO, they'll say you don't qualify for H

Melissa Harms:

one B because you could have a number of different degrees to be A CEO.

Melissa Harms:

You could have a degree in English, you could have a degree in marketing,

Melissa Harms:

you could have a degree in finance.

Melissa Harms:

So they're really looking for the hard science, the analytical fields

Melissa Harms:

to be eligible for H one B status.

Melissa Harms:

And that's all we've got.

Melissa Harms:

Unless you're from another country, we have very specific narrow visa

Melissa Harms:

categories for those from Australia, Mexico Chile, Singapore, and Canada.

Melissa Harms:

But other than that's it.

Melissa Harms:

We can bring people over if they've been employed abroad.

Melissa Harms:

But we don't have a catchall for just the very smart person who's

Melissa Harms:

starting a company, quite frankly.

Melissa Harms:

So there's a giant hole in the Visa framework for, what

Melissa Harms:

we see in today's economy.

Melissa Harms:

And the, we started out talking about how.

Melissa Harms:

Immigration is late 1946, and it really is, we haven't had a

Melissa Harms:

substantive change to our business immigration framework in many years.

Dave Conley:

H one B visas our research is saying it's about, it's only about 85,000

Dave Conley:

people a year that that qualify for that.

Dave Conley:

And what would you say to folks that, that are thinking that somehow this

Dave Conley:

depresses American jobs like Microsoft just fired 9,000 people, and yet they're

Dave Conley:

also asking for a record number of visas.

Dave Conley:

Now, personally, I don't think those two things are like that.

Dave Conley:

The pie isn't, finite like that.

Dave Conley:

But what do you say to people who think that this is something that actually hurts

Dave Conley:

Americans rather than helps everyone?

Melissa Harms:

I think if you believe in capitalism, the

Melissa Harms:

markets correct themselves.

Melissa Harms:

So what I will tell you is that an HOV Visa can cost as much as $3,400.

Melissa Harms:

In just filing fees.

Melissa Harms:

And on top of that, if you wanna have an answer in three weeks, as

Melissa Harms:

opposed to six months, you have to pay $2,500 more to the government.

Melissa Harms:

So you're looking at 6,000 in government fees before you pay my fees.

Melissa Harms:

So companies don't wanna do this unless they have to.

Melissa Harms:

So I have a lot of companies, and I'm on retainer with companies.

Melissa Harms:

That's how we generally work.

Melissa Harms:

They'll say, when we need a Visa, we're gonna call you.

Melissa Harms:

And I have a lot of 'em that say, you know what, we're not

Melissa Harms:

gonna do any H one B sponsorship.

Melissa Harms:

We're just, we're, we feel like we're just.

Melissa Harms:

Gonna save those costs and hire American workers.

Melissa Harms:

And I say, great.

Melissa Harms:

And then I get a call the next week we've had this job open for, 10 months.

Melissa Harms:

Nobody's applied, or the people who have applied have just been way

Melissa Harms:

underqualified and we need a visa.

Melissa Harms:

So the cost of doing these H one visas is a, impediment to, no company's

Melissa Harms:

gonna do this unless they have to.

Melissa Harms:

So you will see them laying off workers, but they're generally

Melissa Harms:

not gonna be laying off workers in categories that are hard to fill.

Melissa Harms:

So they are still hiring H one B workers when they can't find anybody else.

Melissa Harms:

And I think if you look at the way the markets set, the demand is out

Melissa Harms:

there and immigration fluctuates.

Melissa Harms:

We have a lottery each year for people who are getting their first H one B,

Melissa Harms:

and we do this whole archaic thing where we sent in these petitions to

Melissa Harms:

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

Melissa Harms:

And the petitions were, three inches thick.

Melissa Harms:

They cost me about $50 to FedEx.

Melissa Harms:

And we had to send in the entire prepared petition, and then they would

Melissa Harms:

run a lottery and send back the ones that they didn't choose at the expense.

Melissa Harms:

And I always looked at this of $10 per application they sent back in postage.

Melissa Harms:

So this archaic way, finally, we had an electronic system only

Melissa Harms:

within the last five years where we now do this electronically first.

Melissa Harms:

We've been looking at the numbers and what we've seen as.

Melissa Harms:

As the economy gets worse and there's not as many jobs open, there are less

Melissa Harms:

applications for H one B numbers.

Melissa Harms:

So we see it fluctuate based on the way the economy runs.

Melissa Harms:

We used to, under Clinton, the numbers went up, so now we have,

Melissa Harms:

you're right about 85,000 total.

Melissa Harms:

Under Clinton, it was raised to about a hundred and let's

Melissa Harms:

see, 195,000 at one point.

Melissa Harms:

And back then we didn't use them all.

Melissa Harms:

We never used them all.

Melissa Harms:

Now, in today's economy this past year we had, let's see, 358,000 registrations.

Melissa Harms:

And they selected of that, they selected 120,000.

Melissa Harms:

Now, this was down from last year when we had 480,000.

Melissa Harms:

So you see the economy works in seeing how many of these are selected.

Melissa Harms:

And I do have clients that will put somebody in a lottery and

Melissa Harms:

then they're chosen on the lottery and they're really excited.

Melissa Harms:

And then the company will say, you know what?

Melissa Harms:

Hard times we don't have that job anymore.

Melissa Harms:

We're not actually gonna file the petition for that selected person.

Melissa Harms:

We do see that happen when the company feels like there's not a

Melissa Harms:

need for that position anymore.

Dave Conley:

In previous episodes I've talked about how medieval this system is.

Dave Conley:

Can you walk me through sort of the experience of, a student and they wanna

Dave Conley:

stay in the United States and I know, in our research there's something like

Dave Conley:

the OTP and you get to stay here for a little bit, but then you like take your

Dave Conley:

chances versus somebody who's overseas wants to come to the United States.

Dave Conley:

Or is there like yet another category?

Dave Conley:

What are the different things that people try in order to either hire in the United

Dave Conley:

States or stay in the United States?

Melissa Harms:

So what we see is there's really three, again, I'll use buckets

Melissa Harms:

that these H one B applicants come from.

Melissa Harms:

Majority.

Melissa Harms:

I would say, and this is totally off the top of my head with my

Melissa Harms:

cases, 80% of those are students who graduated from a US school.

Melissa Harms:

So these are people who come in on a student visa, an F1 when

Melissa Harms:

they graduate from a US school.

Melissa Harms:

They get one year of OPT as you said.

Melissa Harms:

If they have a degree in a STEM field, which is designated by their school,

Melissa Harms:

they can get an additional two years.

Melissa Harms:

So they get three years total to work in a STEM field without the employer having to

Melissa Harms:

spend money sponsor them, sponsoring them.

Melissa Harms:

So during that time I tell employers, if you wanna keep this person, you

Melissa Harms:

should put them in the lottery the first year that they are eligible.

Melissa Harms:

Because about every year, and this is a really rough estimate, you have

Melissa Harms:

about a 25% chance of selection.

Melissa Harms:

So with three years, you're not guaranteed to get an H one B number.

Melissa Harms:

So you need to try every year.

Melissa Harms:

I have one individual who has been through the lottery nine

Melissa Harms:

times, never been selected.

Melissa Harms:

So there are those outliers.

Melissa Harms:

So that's the, these are the students and those are, that's

Melissa Harms:

probably the biggest bucket of who's applying for these H one B visas.

Melissa Harms:

The people outside the US are, those are not, they're not that many of

Melissa Harms:

them because they need to have the exposure to the US employers to have

Melissa Harms:

the US employer feel like, Hey, I really wanna bring this person over.

Melissa Harms:

I really wanna spend this, five to $10,000 trying to hire this person.

Melissa Harms:

There's not a lot like that.

Melissa Harms:

We might have some who came here for a little while, worked for us, employer went

Melissa Harms:

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

Melissa Harms:

That might be one of or somebody who works for an overseas

Melissa Harms:

subsidiary and wants to come here.

Melissa Harms:

Then the third bucket is people who are here in some their status who wanna move

Melissa Harms:

to H one B. A lot of times that will be somebody who's here on what we call

Melissa Harms:

an L one, and that's an intercompany transferee where you work abroad for

Melissa Harms:

the company for a year, and then you can come here on an L. The L is great

Melissa Harms:

in many ways, but the H is better for long-term green card processing.

Melissa Harms:

So some of those people are switching.

Melissa Harms:

We had people switching out of the tn, which was for Mexicans and Canadians

Melissa Harms:

because of fear of what Trump was gonna do with the TN visa category.

Melissa Harms:

So there's always, we always have fear-based switching h fours, sometimes

Melissa Harms:

it's a dependent of an HMBV holder.

Melissa Harms:

They might say, I got a job and now I wanna move into H one B. 'cause

Melissa Harms:

most of the time they cannot work.

Melissa Harms:

They get to a certain point in the Green card process for the spouse

Melissa Harms:

that they can get a work permit.

Melissa Harms:

But most of the time these spouses of these H one B workers cannot work.

Melissa Harms:

And that's difficult, especially in the Bay Area, to have a single income family.

Melissa Harms:

So they're trying to get their own H one B. So those are the types of people who

Melissa Harms:

would be applying for this H one B status.

Jerremy Newsome:

So

Melissa Harms:

It's a lot.

Melissa Harms:

I know.

Melissa Harms:

I get too technical so feel free to tell me to dumb it down.

Dave Conley:

This is perfect because, in order to really, we have to define these

Dave Conley:

problems, and if people's eyes are glazing over right now, that's a good thing.

Dave Conley:

Because should be simple.

Dave Conley:

That's the first thing.

Dave Conley:

I don't know, in one of our episodes, it's like somebody took the worst of the

Dave Conley:

tax code, drank themselves into oblivion and said, immigrate to the United States,

Melissa Harms:

I tell people that clients, especially when I meet with

Melissa Harms:

new companies, I say, you really should not need me, but you do.

Melissa Harms:

Our system is probably the most complicated and

Melissa Harms:

archaic in the entire world.

Melissa Harms:

And quite frankly, doesn't serve the American population well some

Melissa Harms:

of these policies I look at and what was the policy behind this

Melissa Harms:

and who were they trying to help?

Melissa Harms:

Because it really doesn't help.

Melissa Harms:

Another thing that people might not realize about the H one B system

Melissa Harms:

is that the employers have to say they're paying the hire of the

Melissa Harms:

prevailing wage and the actual wage.

Melissa Harms:

For that position, in that location.

Melissa Harms:

So the reason they do that is they say, we wanna protect US workers.

Melissa Harms:

We don't want companies to come in, fire all their US workers and hire

Melissa Harms:

H one B workers and underpay them.

Melissa Harms:

Great intent.

Melissa Harms:

I see where that's going.

Melissa Harms:

But the way it plays out in a lot of my cases, I can't even tell you how many, is

Melissa Harms:

that our prevailing wage is set by the, we use this government database for wages.

Melissa Harms:

And I don't know where they are getting their data.

Melissa Harms:

They don't even cite it.

Melissa Harms:

But it's incredibly high.

Melissa Harms:

So what happens is somebody will call me and say, I wanna hire a software engineer.

Melissa Harms:

In Silicon Valley, and I'll say, great, the prevailing wage for that is 240,000.

Melissa Harms:

And they say, there's no way I'm gonna pay that person 240,000.

Melissa Harms:

I say that's the prevailing wage.

Melissa Harms:

And so they'll either A, not hire them, or B, they'll hire them and

Melissa Harms:

pay them like twice as much as they're paying their US workers.

Melissa Harms:

In effect, it doesn't do what it's supposed to do, put it that way.

Melissa Harms:

I think if we had a workable wage database that was actually accurate

Melissa Harms:

it does have a good intent behind it, but it just doesn't work.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so you also teach HR professionals about immigration.

Jerremy Newsome:

What are the common misconceptions they hold about, the process or

Jerremy Newsome:

any individuals that might really hurt the ability to hire talent?

Melissa Harms:

This kind of comes back to you shouldn't need me, but you do.

Melissa Harms:

One of the things I tell them is, before you hire anybody.

Melissa Harms:

We have certain questions you can ask without violating any

Melissa Harms:

discrimination laws about whether or not the person needs sponsorship.

Melissa Harms:

So before you hire somebody, come to me and I have them give me the resume,

Melissa Harms:

the job description, and the salary.

Melissa Harms:

We also have a short questionnaire.

Melissa Harms:

We ask anybody who says they need sponsorship to fill out so I can make

Melissa Harms:

sure there's a visa that works because there's a lot of times where they

Melissa Harms:

wanna hire somebody and say, I'm sorry.

Melissa Harms:

There's just nothing we can do for that person.

Melissa Harms:

So that's the first thing I tell HR people is just talk to

Melissa Harms:

me before you extend an offer.

Melissa Harms:

And that, and it's also comes to educating them on what can be done

Melissa Harms:

for people and what the costs are.

Melissa Harms:

A lot of times they don't realize how much this costs.

Melissa Harms:

And I find myself in many occasions, talking them out of hiring somebody

Melissa Harms:

because the costs are so high, they're not gonna be able to keep them for long.

Melissa Harms:

The chances are low that their case is gonna get approved.

Melissa Harms:

I think just having an open dialogue with an immigration attorney is

Melissa Harms:

probably the first thing they can learn.

Dave Conley:

And so everybody pays, right?

Dave Conley:

So the worker is in this place of uncertainty for sometimes years.

Dave Conley:

The businesses have to pay all these fees and they're stuck in this uncertainty.

Dave Conley:

Am I gonna have this person?

Dave Conley:

Am I not?

Dave Conley:

this is, none of this could actually help businesses, right?

Dave Conley:

There's no upside to this.

Dave Conley:

Is there?

Melissa Harms:

no.

Melissa Harms:

There really isn't.

Melissa Harms:

And we have people who aren't selected the lottery.

Melissa Harms:

These students, some of these are PhDs from Stanford.

Melissa Harms:

I had a situation with one of my biotech clients several years ago where the

Melissa Harms:

individual just didn't get the h. She had been here in F1 after her PhD, so

Melissa Harms:

she had to move back to, I think they moved her to Hong Kong where they had an

Melissa Harms:

office, opened a lab there for her, and then hired all the lab workers in Hong

Melissa Harms:

Kong that they would've hired in the US if she could run her lab in the us.

Melissa Harms:

But because she could not get a degree or could not get an H one B,

Melissa Harms:

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

Melissa Harms:

So those are some of the things, what we're seeing now with the current

Melissa Harms:

administration, there is something called an Extraordinary Ability

Melissa Harms:

visa that we use for a lot of these scientists and highly trained workers.

Melissa Harms:

And we're seeing U-S-C-I-S crack down on those and say, this

Melissa Harms:

person isn't extraordinary, or.

Melissa Harms:

This work is not the national interest.

Melissa Harms:

Under Biden there was a sort of streamlined approach to this, what

Melissa Harms:

we call a national interest waiver which is a green card application

Melissa Harms:

for people in the STEM fields.

Melissa Harms:

And basically if you could prove that your work was the national interest and

Melissa Harms:

you had a PhD in the STEM field, it was an expedited route to this green card.

Melissa Harms:

I filed one for somebody who has a PhD in chemical engineering and he's worked

Melissa Harms:

at a biotech company for many years.

Melissa Harms:

He has whole departments reporting to him and they just said he

Melissa Harms:

wasn't extraordinary enough.

Melissa Harms:

So in the last 12 months, we've seen this national interest waiver

Melissa Harms:

applications go down the tubes as well.

Melissa Harms:

I think the Biden administration had the interest of promoting the

Melissa Harms:

economy and promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in mind.

Melissa Harms:

I don't know what the current administration has in mind, honestly.

Jerremy Newsome:

I've heard people say that before.

Melissa Harms:

Yeah.

Melissa Harms:

That was about as diplomatic as I could put it, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

That was nice.

Jerremy Newsome:

I like that diplomacy.

Jerremy Newsome:

So in regards to what you kinda mentioned, like the different, graduates that

Jerremy Newsome:

are getting specific degrees, you see some that are outside of the STEM that

Jerremy Newsome:

people should or could focus more on

Melissa Harms:

I think particularly with your entrepreneurs now, some

Melissa Harms:

business schools, and I do work with, a business school here in the Bay Area.

Melissa Harms:

Many of the top tier business schools have been able to get their programs

Melissa Harms:

designated as STEM programs with a business degree, which is fantastic.

Melissa Harms:

'cause then their graduates get that three years.

Melissa Harms:

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

Melissa Harms:

I'm always scared to point out the good things because somebody will

Melissa Harms:

listen to this and shut 'em down.

Melissa Harms:

But, if that changes, I think we have a real hole for entrepreneurs and

Melissa Harms:

we had an international entrepreneur rule that was so complicated and

Melissa Harms:

convoluted that immigration attorneys just wouldn't even touch it.

Melissa Harms:

But we need something for the people who are building the economy and

Melissa Harms:

our entrepreneurs out there, that may not have a STEM degree but

Melissa Harms:

are still, fantastic individuals who are going to contribute jobs.

Melissa Harms:

I think everything should be geared towards job creation.

Melissa Harms:

And there are many visas that have been but it's not the

Melissa Harms:

way the economy works now.

Melissa Harms:

So we need an economist to come in and say, how can we simulate the

Melissa Harms:

US economy through immigration?

Dave Conley:

Tell me a little bit about the penalties.

Dave Conley:

Certainly if you're here undocumented, particularly in areas like

Dave Conley:

construction or farming or service level jobs, and you're undocumented.

Dave Conley:

There isn't that big of a penalty.

Dave Conley:

They keep on doing it.

Dave Conley:

I happen to live in Florida.

Dave Conley:

It's one of the few states that mandate, like E-Verify to hire people.

Dave Conley:

But when it comes to legal, immigration, people going through

Dave Conley:

this process, what's the downside to a business saying, ah, screw it.

Dave Conley:

We're just going to keep this person here.

Dave Conley:

We're just gonna keep going in this process.

Melissa Harms:

It's a, that's a complicated question.

Melissa Harms:

There are a number of different types of penalties based on that.

Melissa Harms:

If you had somebody who was an H one B and you knew that their h had expired

Melissa Harms:

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

Melissa Harms:

You have the basic i nine penalties.

Melissa Harms:

But then you have, if there's a knowing violation you can attach

Melissa Harms:

even criminal penalties, not only the company, but to the HR representative.

Melissa Harms:

So there are a number of different it depends on what the degree of malicious.

Melissa Harms:

Intent was as to what your penalties could be.

Melissa Harms:

But the simple I nine penalties quite frankly are not that high.

Melissa Harms:

I don't have them in front of me, but we're talking hundreds of thousands

Melissa Harms:

of dollars, which is a drop in the bucket for a lot of these companies.

Melissa Harms:

I think the bigger issue and I think you might be reading these reports

Melissa Harms:

and I'm not like, these are not usually my type of clients 'cause I'm

Melissa Harms:

working with more, people who are.

Melissa Harms:

Doing highly skilled workers and they don't have a lot of undocumented workers.

Melissa Harms:

But you'll look at these.

Melissa Harms:

I just read an article in New York Times yesterday about a meat processing

Melissa Harms:

plant in, I think it was IL or somewhere that had been rated and lost 70% of

Melissa Harms:

the workforce who was using E-Verify.

Melissa Harms:

So you know this, and in the owner of the company has always been Republican.

Melissa Harms:

He voted, he actually voted in 2024 for Democrat because of the

Melissa Harms:

potential impact on his workers for these immigration wa raids.

Melissa Harms:

And he's gonna have to shut down because he is lost 70% of his workforce.

Melissa Harms:

So that I think is what has a lot of those type of employers running.

Melissa Harms:

Scared is not so much the penalties they'll face, but if they're rated,

Melissa Harms:

what's gonna happen to their workforce because they rely on those workers.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Makes sense.

Jerremy Newsome:

You're talking about the scale, some of the companies just describe that.

Jerremy Newsome:

Is there certain companies that are just demoralized by all of this happening

Jerremy Newsome:

and that have to have current employers here that just simply cannot go and

Jerremy Newsome:

find any immigrants to come over?

Melissa Harms:

Again, these really aren't the clients I'm working for.

Melissa Harms:

But I think if you look in the restaurants and the agricultural

Melissa Harms:

fields, manufacturing, that's where you're gonna see the hardest hit.

Melissa Harms:

I'm very close to Napa Valley and I think that, you're gonna see a lot of these

Melissa Harms:

agricultural workers in Napa be affected.

Melissa Harms:

I think the fear is a really big part of

Melissa Harms:

What's happening now.

Melissa Harms:

There are certain companies or certain.

Melissa Harms:

I know wineries people just don't show up 'cause they're scared

Melissa Harms:

that ICE is gonna show up there.

Melissa Harms:

There's all sorts of websites that track where ICE is and people are

Melissa Harms:

scared to go into those communities where they know ICE is going to be.

Melissa Harms:

And, on a personal level I see these kids, these high school kids, or I have

Melissa Harms:

high school children, but these kids who are scared about their parents being

Melissa Harms:

deported, what is that gonna do to me?

Melissa Harms:

That's a whole other sector from what I do.

Melissa Harms:

But I think what, my employers and my clients are facing is how are we gonna

Melissa Harms:

get the talent we need and how do we continue to be innovative and develop

Melissa Harms:

the drugs that we wanna develop or, come up with these new technologies

Melissa Harms:

without the best and the brightest.

Melissa Harms:

And America's starting to sound like a place that doesn't welcome

Melissa Harms:

the best and the brightest.

Dave Conley:

It's not, it's something I had from a personal.

Dave Conley:

Somebody in my life was that their visa was through their employer and in a

Dave Conley:

way, she was trapped with the employer.

Melissa Harms:

Yes.

Dave Conley:

So tell me about that.

Dave Conley:

And what are some of the downsides to having this employee based

Melissa Harms:

Yeah.

Melissa Harms:

That's hard, it's almost indentured servitude because you get hired

Melissa Harms:

by this employer and the life cycle of a foreign worker.

Melissa Harms:

They're hired maybe as a student with that OPT and then

Melissa Harms:

they get they H one B lottery.

Melissa Harms:

They work with the employer.

Melissa Harms:

Now they can go work for another employer.

Melissa Harms:

But that new employer has to do the h again, they don't have to go through the

Melissa Harms:

lottery, but they have to pay all those ridiculous fees we just talked about.

Melissa Harms:

So that's what they have to do if they leave companies.

Melissa Harms:

Now, the scary part for them is what if they get laid off?

Melissa Harms:

They don't have a job anymore.

Melissa Harms:

They essentially have a 60 day grace period to find a new job

Melissa Harms:

without having to leave the us.

Melissa Harms:

Which, if you're a senior level person, that's just not easily done.

Melissa Harms:

So that's very scary.

Melissa Harms:

And then, the other side of this is that if they wanna stay here past

Melissa Harms:

that six years, so you get a total of six years in H one B status.

Melissa Harms:

If you wanna stay here, if you start having kids here and you develop

Melissa Harms:

your professional network here.

Melissa Harms:

You have to have the company file a green card for you and you talk about

Melissa Harms:

archaic, where, I could get into that.

Melissa Harms:

But that's where the company has to recruit and prove there's

Melissa Harms:

a shortage of US workers.

Melissa Harms:

And they have all these things they have to do, these recruitment

Melissa Harms:

steps they have to take.

Melissa Harms:

One of which is putting two Sunday newspaper ads, which if you'll go pick

Melissa Harms:

up a Sunday newspaper, the Chronicle or wherever you are, New York Times

Melissa Harms:

has them, I would say 80% of those newspaper help wanted ads are for

Melissa Harms:

the green card process for a foreign national, because they have to be done.

Melissa Harms:

No, I'm serious because I know what they look like.

Melissa Harms:

We have to write 'em a certain way so I can pick up the newspaper.

Melissa Harms:

I'm like that's a perma.

Melissa Harms:

That's a perma.

Melissa Harms:

That's a perma.

Melissa Harms:

So they have to go out and recruit for this position.

Melissa Harms:

And then once they go through this.

Melissa Harms:

Really two year process of just getting the thing on file or getting it approved.

Melissa Harms:

They have more steps.

Melissa Harms:

They have to wait for a green card number to come up because we have only a

Melissa Harms:

certain number of green cards per year.

Melissa Harms:

Like we have H one Bs per year.

Melissa Harms:

So they're waiting and waiting and the whole time they're

Melissa Harms:

stuck with that employer.

Melissa Harms:

They do get to a certain point very far in the process where they

Melissa Harms:

could change employers, but it's years and years down the line.

Melissa Harms:

So now that they've had this employer file for them and spend all this

Melissa Harms:

money and get this approved to a certain point, they're still stuck

Melissa Harms:

with that employer and that job.

Melissa Harms:

That job has to remained somewhat the same.

Melissa Harms:

You can allow for a little bit of career progression, but if you get hired as a.

Melissa Harms:

Analyst and now you're running the whole department.

Melissa Harms:

That's a completely different job and you need now a whole new recruitment process

Melissa Harms:

and proving shortage and all of that.

Melissa Harms:

So that's where it gets really bad.

Melissa Harms:

And that's where you really talk about the indenture servitude.

Melissa Harms:

'cause these employees have to stay with the same employer for so many years.

Dave Conley:

And she couldn't like at some point in the process, like she

Dave Conley:

wasn't allowed to leave the United States for years, and then she needed all

Dave Conley:

these like invasive like medical tests.

Dave Conley:

And I'm like, oh, come on.

Dave Conley:

Is that real?

Melissa Harms:

yeah.

Melissa Harms:

We have to, they have to do medical exams.

Melissa Harms:

There's a certain period of time where they can't leave because of certain

Melissa Harms:

paperwork we're filing if they don't have an underlying non-immigrant visa.

Melissa Harms:

I find it hilarious that we've got, this health and human services

Melissa Harms:

secretary who doesn't want vaccines, but our four nationals have to have

Melissa Harms:

three COVID vaccines and everything else under the sun before they

Melissa Harms:

can become a green card holder.

Melissa Harms:

So it's, yeah, it is a very long, very expensive process from start to finish.

Melissa Harms:

Just to give you an idea on the, and this is something that shocks a lot of people

Melissa Harms:

for these employment-based green cards.

Melissa Harms:

So if you're being sponsored by an employer and you don't have a

Melissa Harms:

family member to sponsor you we have that, I think it's 144,000

Melissa Harms:

per year only for green cards.

Melissa Harms:

And it's broken down by country of birth and your preference category.

Melissa Harms:

And so the country of birth was that we wanted to have a diverse country.

Melissa Harms:

So we don't want one single country to, to have all the green cards, right?

Melissa Harms:

So the countries with the highest demand have the longest waits.

Melissa Harms:

So if you're from China, for example, right now the visa bullets and

Melissa Harms:

that we get every month, if you're from China actually India's worse.

Melissa Harms:

So if you're from India you could be waiting 12 years for a grain card

Melissa Harms:

If your employer sponsors you.

Melissa Harms:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

whoa.

Melissa Harms:

So it's, it's just a crazy system.

Melissa Harms:

And it also seems very unfair.

Melissa Harms:

'cause you're from India and you wait 12 years, but if you were born in

Melissa Harms:

Pakistan, you wait a year and a half.

Melissa Harms:

And that's all based on demand.

Melissa Harms:

That's the whole point.

Melissa Harms:

And there's been a lot of different proposals in Congress to eliminate

Melissa Harms:

the per country limitations.

Melissa Harms:

None of which have succeeded.

Melissa Harms:

Nothing succeeds in Congress about immigration anymore, but this one has

Melissa Harms:

been one that a lot of people have advocated for, to make it more fair.

Melissa Harms:

But yeah it's definitely a broken system.

Jerremy Newsome:

Just dancing around that for a second.

Jerremy Newsome:

The latest federal spending bill had major fee increases.

Jerremy Newsome:

Do you see any of these rising costs throughout the system affecting

Jerremy Newsome:

more Visa business sponsorships?

Melissa Harms:

Yeah, the Visa fees went up dramatically.

Melissa Harms:

In 2024, there was a new fee increase.

Melissa Harms:

And we have now we have a $600 asylum fee that's added on to every single

Melissa Harms:

case we file 300 if you're from a small employer that has less than 26 employees.

Melissa Harms:

That was completely new.

Melissa Harms:

That was supposedly to fund the asylum program, and this

Melissa Harms:

is just for H one B workers.

Melissa Harms:

And then the fees themselves went up, I think 70% for an H one B. So

Melissa Harms:

the fees have gone up dramatically.

Melissa Harms:

Like I said, a lot of these employers really need these people.

Melissa Harms:

So that Delta was not enough to dissuade them just from the filing

Melissa Harms:

fees when you're talking H one Bs.

Melissa Harms:

But, I think the fees just incredibly start to get more and

Melissa Harms:

more unbearable as things progress.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Melissa Harms:

it's expensive.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yep.

Dave Conley:

fees go?

Dave Conley:

Do they fund what is it, the U-S-C-I-S or what, or they just go into the ether?

Melissa Harms:

So the, there's a filing fee that's supposed to just fund the

Melissa Harms:

cost of adjudicating the petition.

Melissa Harms:

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

Melissa Harms:

It's supposed to generate its own fees.

Melissa Harms:

Then there's a fee, there's a $500 fraud fee, which is what it's called.

Melissa Harms:

And that goes to this FDNS unit, which is fraud detection,

Melissa Harms:

national security, I think.

Melissa Harms:

And they go out actually, and this is a very active unit.

Melissa Harms:

They go out to employers and will say, okay, you filed an H one B

Melissa Harms:

petition on behalf of Joe Schmo.

Melissa Harms:

I wanna talk to Joe Schmo and make sure he's doing what you

Melissa Harms:

said he did in the petition.

Melissa Harms:

And I've had many of my clients have been visited by those fraud officers

Melissa Harms:

and that $500 fee funds that department.

Melissa Harms:

We've never had a problem with the fraud officers because as I'm lucky to have

Melissa Harms:

clients who are actually employing people in the capacity that they say they are.

Melissa Harms:

And then there's a $1,500 education retraining fee that is supposed

Melissa Harms:

to go back into US education.

Melissa Harms:

I've never, really tracked that fund that's part of the H one B fees.

Melissa Harms:

But that was the intent of that was let's educate US workers so

Melissa Harms:

they can do these jobs that we're getting forward workers to do.

Melissa Harms:

And that's actually one of my personal feelings about the whole

Melissa Harms:

process is that we do need to look at our education system because we're

Melissa Harms:

not churning out the science, the employees that our employers need.

Melissa Harms:

So there should be a better look at our education systems and.

Melissa Harms:

I can get on my high horse, California and its schools and how expensive it is

Melissa Harms:

to go to the California universities and how hard it is to get into a University

Melissa Harms:

of California or even a Cal State School.

Melissa Harms:

They need to look at giving more money to education here in the us for sure.

Jerremy Newsome:

Or at least doing it correctly.

Melissa Harms:

Yes.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah,

Melissa Harms:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

lot of money.

Jerremy Newsome:

I mean that, that was why Dave, me and Dave asked that

Jerremy Newsome:

question once in an episode.

Jerremy Newsome:

Where's the money going?

Melissa Harms:

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

Melissa Harms:

I'd love to see where, all those H one B fees go.

Melissa Harms:

Yeah.

Melissa Harms:

Our government is really good about being transparent in immigration.

Melissa Harms:

Let me tell you that.

Jerremy Newsome:

Oh, the best we're number one for sure.

Jerremy Newsome:

So if you had to sum this up, you can do it delicately or not.

Jerremy Newsome:

What is working, is there a portion of this?

Jerremy Newsome:

You're like, man, we're crushing it here.

Jerremy Newsome:

We're doing really great.

Melissa Harms:

I think one of my frustrations with H one Bs, and again,

Melissa Harms:

I keep coming back to those 'cause it really is 70 to 80% of what we do.

Melissa Harms:

One of my frustrations with those has been the way they change the adjudication

Melissa Harms:

standards without any sort of lawmaking.

Melissa Harms:

They just say, Nope, that doesn't count as a specialty occupation.

Melissa Harms:

When they had more lax standards about those H one Bs, it did work.

Melissa Harms:

And when we didn't have this lottery system for H one Bs, it did work because

Melissa Harms:

like I said, when companies can hire a US worker and not pay these fees, they will,

Melissa Harms:

and having those, even those inflated salary surveys, just having some sort

Melissa Harms:

of salary protection on there, it works.

Melissa Harms:

What I think would work better is some sort of point system where we can look

Melissa Harms:

at, and, other countries do this, where we look at the individual's education,

Melissa Harms:

we look at, not if it's a. Bachelor's degree, but look at a points, look at

Melissa Harms:

how long they've worked in the industry.

Melissa Harms:

Look at, how, what is their impact gonna be on the US economy.

Melissa Harms:

Like some sort of point system where we capture it in a different way.

Melissa Harms:

I think that could really work.

Melissa Harms:

I think the NIW, the streamlined MI Ws for cases where people really are

Melissa Harms:

doing important work, we need that back.

Melissa Harms:

We need some sort of way to get these cases approved for people who are

Melissa Harms:

generating money and jobs for Americans.

Melissa Harms:

So that was a really

Jerremy Newsome:

No,

Jerremy Newsome:

Brilliant.

Melissa Harms:

flaky response because there's not too much

Melissa Harms:

that's working great right now.

Jerremy Newsome:

you gave me a good segue because looking at Canada's point

Jerremy Newsome:

based immigration system, maybe you know, Australia's regional programs where it's

Jerremy Newsome:

easier to immigrate to underpopulated areas, you feel like that would be a

Jerremy Newsome:

very relevant thing to make a shift into.

Melissa Harms:

I do.

Melissa Harms:

And I'm definitely on the moderate side of immigration.

Melissa Harms:

There are people who feel like we should have open borders and

Melissa Harms:

I don't think we can do that.

Melissa Harms:

I want common sense immigration reform, but it should make sense with

Melissa Harms:

balancing the needs of US workers against what we need to remain relevant

Melissa Harms:

the world economy and innovative.

Melissa Harms:

I think that we're, especially, we haven't really talked about this,

Melissa Harms:

but the recent crackdown on American universities from the current

Melissa Harms:

administration we're gonna lose our best and brightest of the university setting.

Melissa Harms:

And I think that's the beginning of the end to me.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Valid.

Jerremy Newsome:

Talking about that.

Jerremy Newsome:

'cause I'm a huge educational guy.

Jerremy Newsome:

If you could the student to worker transition process.

Jerremy Newsome:

What type of pathway would that look like?

Jerremy Newsome:

Or how would that kind of be reformatted, Melissa?

Melissa Harms:

I think what would be great is to have some of these

Melissa Harms:

workers work under this, like what we call OPT and be required to do OPT

Melissa Harms:

before they transition to H but not have them worry about the lottery.

Melissa Harms:

So if they had.

Melissa Harms:

Three years of work experience under OPT, then they didn't have

Melissa Harms:

to go into the lottery because then you can have employers really try

Melissa Harms:

'em out and make sure that they're really somebody they wanna invest in.

Melissa Harms:

Because if, and I have this happen all the time, where somebody will

Melissa Harms:

say, the company will say we hired this person, but they're just not

Melissa Harms:

cutting it, so we're gonna lay 'em off.

Melissa Harms:

So give them a chance to train them and figure out if they are worth it before

Melissa Harms:

they sponsor them for H one B, but don't have it be this fear-based system

Melissa Harms:

where I better sponsor them or they'll never get a chance to work with me.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yep.

Jerremy Newsome:

And for universities watching international enrollment drop, do you have

Jerremy Newsome:

any creative approaches within current law that could help retain graduates?

Melissa Harms:

I also am, and this may not be popular, but I do think it has to be

Melissa Harms:

balanced number of foreign students too.

Melissa Harms:

I do think especially our public institutions that you set a realistic.

Melissa Harms:

Level for how many foreign students you're gonna accept.

Melissa Harms:

And then you work with your budget that way.

Melissa Harms:

'cause I think that's been frustration in the uc system is that there was a point

Melissa Harms:

in time where there were so many foreign students and that California student

Melissa Harms:

kids weren't getting into these schools.

Melissa Harms:

So I think you have to look at that, but I think that maybe the federal

Melissa Harms:

level, the federal government comes up with a, percentage for how many

Melissa Harms:

J ones and F ones you can give out.

Melissa Harms:

And then we're gonna make up that shortfall in the budget

Melissa Harms:

with federal funding, in your budget for whatever you need.

Melissa Harms:

And then they get the best, the brightest for those students.

Melissa Harms:

But, you also need to develop pathways for us kids to, to get

Melissa Harms:

into those institutions as well.

Melissa Harms:

It's a broken, we get a whole, I could do a whole podcast with you on

Melissa Harms:

getting your children into college.

Melissa Harms:

'cause I just went into that and how broken that system is because the.

Jerremy Newsome:

We'll have to get back.

Melissa Harms:

That is a mess.

Melissa Harms:

Let me tell you now.

Jerremy Newsome:

I will say the only, and I can only speak from two states the

Jerremy Newsome:

only two states, and then we'll probably get back into the general topic, but the

Jerremy Newsome:

only two states that I know of that do it correctly, from my current knowledge, and

Jerremy Newsome:

Georgia do a great job on a state base of the Hopes program and dual enrollment,

Jerremy Newsome:

Where, you know, you go to high school and you go to a free dual enrollment

Jerremy Newsome:

program with a community college.

Jerremy Newsome:

And when you're in that community college, that counts for high school

Jerremy Newsome:

and college credits without taking any like honors or AP or anything like that.

Jerremy Newsome:

So when you graduate high school.

Jerremy Newsome:

If you already have two years of college done the ability, once you've done a

Jerremy Newsome:

dual enrollment in Florida or Georgia, to get into a college, at least for me,

Jerremy Newsome:

again my SAT scores is like a nine 30.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm a, have a nine, I have a 97 iq.

Jerremy Newsome:

I do I've taken tests, it's whatever.

Jerremy Newsome:

But I went right into University of Florida, top 10, college,

Jerremy Newsome:

business school in the nation.

Jerremy Newsome:

there was some that do it correctly.

Jerremy Newsome:

But to your point, you have to be in that state.

Jerremy Newsome:

You have to live in that state, you have to go to school in that state.

Jerremy Newsome:

Good grades in that state.

Jerremy Newsome:

So there's a lot of aspects that do approach that.

Jerremy Newsome:

But I really enjoy kinda like what you mentioned in the sense of there

Jerremy Newsome:

should be some type of system approach where you have US based students,

Jerremy Newsome:

obviously international based students obviously, but if the internationals

Jerremy Newsome:

do wanna stay here, get visas, get working, visas working into a

Jerremy Newsome:

transition, like just having that be.

Jerremy Newsome:

Grade related, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Like how do they do, how do their scores do?

Jerremy Newsome:

What

Jerremy Newsome:

Do?

Jerremy Newsome:

What type of jobs are they trying to get?

Jerremy Newsome:

And then making the employment so much easier.

Jerremy Newsome:

'cause that kind of blows my mind a little bit, that a company

Jerremy Newsome:

can sponsor someone and they're in India and it takes 12 years.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's like the fourth of someone's life.

Melissa Harms:

Yes.

Melissa Harms:

To get a green card.

Jerremy Newsome:

already said, yes, let's do this.

Melissa Harms:

I think getting back to the student I mean I think that's

Melissa Harms:

where the system is broken right now is that you do have this connection

Melissa Harms:

between the schools and the employers.

Melissa Harms:

We bring in these foreign students and we bring in a lot of them and we

Melissa Harms:

bring 'em in to get educated here.

Melissa Harms:

So when we're bringing 'em in to get educated here, there needs to

Melissa Harms:

be a pathway for them to stay and implement that education, right?

Melissa Harms:

So that's why the federal government, in some ways does need to get involved in

Melissa Harms:

the students and how many they're bringing over are they just bringing 'em over?

Melissa Harms:

'cause they can pay full tuition.

Melissa Harms:

'cause a lot of schools.

Melissa Harms:

The foreign students pay more, right?

Melissa Harms:

So they make a lot of money off the foreign students.

Melissa Harms:

Bring 'em over but then there's gonna be no pathway for them to stay.

Melissa Harms:

It creates this friction right there.

Melissa Harms:

So that's where there needs to be.

Melissa Harms:

If you are brought into a US school and you are in that top percent to be at that

Melissa Harms:

institution, then I feel like there should be a way for you to stay here and work in

Melissa Harms:

the us But let's not bring over, I don't even know the numbers, but 10 million

Melissa Harms:

foreign students and only have a pathway for 85,000 of them to stay, every year.

Melissa Harms:

That's where I feel like the breakdown happens is that these students

Melissa Harms:

come in with the feeling that once I graduate from here, I can stay.

Melissa Harms:

Or maybe that's made clear that they can't, from the outset,

Jerremy Newsome:

yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's a topic of immigration that I. Definitely know that not a lot of people

Jerremy Newsome:

are discussing right now, which I'm so happy to have you on this podcast for.

Jerremy Newsome:

Because again, right now, especially with the Trump administration and it's

Jerremy Newsome:

all about alligator Alcatraz and the undocumented and the asylum seekers.

Jerremy Newsome:

But to that point, is a huge portion that's affected by

Jerremy Newsome:

totally different aspects.

Jerremy Newsome:

We're like, Hey, listen, I'm working.

Jerremy Newsome:

I pay taxes.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm a student.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm here.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm spending money in this economy.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm spending money in this country.

Jerremy Newsome:

I have a job, I work here, and I can't even get it.

Jerremy Newsome:

I can't stay in.

Jerremy Newsome:

That is definitely a wild broach.

Jerremy Newsome:

So I don't think people are even really truly discussing.

Melissa Harms:

And expanding on that from the business students I talked to,

Melissa Harms:

there's some people, these individuals with these amazing ideas and they

Melissa Harms:

say to me, I wanna start a business.

Melissa Harms:

I've got funding.

Melissa Harms:

Can I hire myself for H one B?

Melissa Harms:

We have some rules that are making it a little easier on them, but

Melissa Harms:

not great.

Melissa Harms:

And it is hard.

Melissa Harms:

So let's have a way for them when they're starting a new business after graduating

Melissa Harms:

from a top five business school for them to be able to start it and try it.

Melissa Harms:

And let's see what happens.

Melissa Harms:

Maybe it's a short term, you get a five-year visa at a tryout your

Melissa Harms:

business, but let's figure out a way if we're gonna bring 'em in, and

Melissa Harms:

they're these amazing people to have 'em stay if they're gonna come here.

Jerremy Newsome:

yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

'Cause you talked about, the entrepreneurship route and potentially

Jerremy Newsome:

that having some different application process or awareness process point system.

Jerremy Newsome:

It makes sense to me.

Jerremy Newsome:

be beyond federal reform, Melissa, and we're talking about schools too.

Jerremy Newsome:

I was like, what can states and cities do?

Jerremy Newsome:

Actually to help businesses access global talent,

Melissa Harms:

Quite frankly, there's not a lot they can do because

Melissa Harms:

immigration law is all federal.

Melissa Harms:

So to get these visas, they're really working on the federal.

Melissa Harms:

I have a lot of great employers who are doing things like helping the people

Melissa Harms:

on DACA transition from DACA into an H one B. Really trying to look at their

Melissa Harms:

workforce with a holistic view of how can we help some of these people,

Melissa Harms:

asylum seekers, and maybe helping with some of their fees or whatever.

Melissa Harms:

Because a lot of these people who are in that other bucket I talked about

Melissa Harms:

are actually working at companies in lawful status, but they're just

Melissa Harms:

in this very transitory phase.

Melissa Harms:

I do encourage employers to look at sort of ways to be helpful to

Melissa Harms:

your foreign national workforce other than just sponsorship.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

And for the small businesses, Melissa, like small business owners

Jerremy Newsome:

who needs international talent, but fears the system, what are three

Jerremy Newsome:

practical steps that they could take this week, in your opinion?

Melissa Harms:

That's a really good question.

Melissa Harms:

I do work with a lot of small employers who are very.

Melissa Harms:

They're so nervous about doing it about sponsoring somebody for H one B, and I

Melissa Harms:

think the first thing I do is say that's usually a student that they've hired

Melissa Harms:

that they wanna get an H one B for, and I just lay out the costs and say, you

Melissa Harms:

just have to know these are the costs and these are what you could be sacrificing.

Melissa Harms:

And as long as they're willing to do that then we go forward.

Melissa Harms:

And it's just honestly, find a partner who will, an immigration partner who will

Melissa Harms:

explain everything to you very clearly and simply about what happens next.

Melissa Harms:

And it's hard to understand, but walk you through the whole process because that's

Melissa Harms:

what we need with those smaller employers.

Melissa Harms:

I do encourage all my employers to sign up for E-Verify.

Melissa Harms:

I know it's.

Melissa Harms:

It's not the best system, but it does show a good faith approach

Melissa Harms:

to following the immigration laws.

Melissa Harms:

So I think E-Verify is definitely useful.

Melissa Harms:

Again, not perfect.

Melissa Harms:

And then I think another thing that you would wanna look at are some of the,

Melissa Harms:

causes you can help in your community.

Melissa Harms:

There are a lot of different, there's a group I work with called Talent Beyond

Melissa Harms:

Boundaries, and they help bring in highly skilled workers who are working.

Melissa Harms:

You might have an engineer that's in a Syrian basement that would

Melissa Harms:

like to do, electrical engineering somewhere very qualified, so they try

Melissa Harms:

to match them up with us employers.

Melissa Harms:

Look at ways like that to find talent where you can't find American workers.

Melissa Harms:

So being a little creative and there are a lot of great ways

Melissa Harms:

you can help for nationals and still help your business succeed.

Jerremy Newsome:

And then from a, let's just say even bigger front, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

So we talked about the small guys.

Jerremy Newsome:

If American businesses unite on one immigration, ask

Jerremy Newsome:

Congress, what should it be?

Melissa Harms:

I think it would be to give us a workable work visa that

Melissa Harms:

captures like a point-based work visa.

Melissa Harms:

I think if they could, revisit the H one B with today's economy, today's

Melissa Harms:

professions, like there are a lot of professions now that do allow for a

Melissa Harms:

number of different bachelor's degrees.

Melissa Harms:

The bachelor's degree is a antiquated requirement in my mind.

Melissa Harms:

Looking at your work visa and look at it more of a point system.

Melissa Harms:

And then, the lottery, making the lottery more equitable.

Melissa Harms:

People like the individual who's been through nine times, there should be some

Melissa Harms:

sort of allowance given to people the more times they've gone through the lottery.

Melissa Harms:

I don't know.

Melissa Harms:

I think we can just really revisit the work visa at this point.

Dave Conley:

So I think it was in previous episodes that we've had.

Dave Conley:

We also know that, so much of this is geared towards college

Dave Conley:

yet where we need to be doing.

Dave Conley:

Probably most of the hiring in the United States is in blue collar professions.

Dave Conley:

And by and large, the electricians, the concrete workers, the people

Dave Conley:

who are actually building.

Dave Conley:

Are from outside of this country.

Dave Conley:

So what does point-based system mean?

Dave Conley:

How does that work?

Dave Conley:

Does it say, oh, you have a bachelor's degree?

Dave Conley:

Yes.

Dave Conley:

Or you have a, high skillset.

Dave Conley:

Yes.

Dave Conley:

What does point-based mean?

Melissa Harms:

I like those examples because I do think that there's points

Melissa Harms:

for different occupations that we need.

Melissa Harms:

We need more nurses, we need more, a simple nurse cannot get an H

Melissa Harms:

one B, so we need things that accommodate non four year degrees.

Melissa Harms:

So part of that point system could be based on what's the

Melissa Harms:

need for that occupation.

Melissa Harms:

And every year there could be some sort of indexing of where are the occupations

Melissa Harms:

that are unfilled by US workers?

Melissa Harms:

And those get an extra point.

Melissa Harms:

So you could bring in people in, because that's another complaint I

Melissa Harms:

have a lot, like maybe it's somebody that's just an exceptional, very

Melissa Harms:

exceptional sales, for example.

Melissa Harms:

And this person's sales, like that's probably my most common need is

Melissa Harms:

that a lot of these companies, this guy's been selling for me from.

Melissa Harms:

From abroad, and his sales numbers are through the roof.

Melissa Harms:

I wanna bring him into the US and I'm like, no, I can't

Melissa Harms:

get a visa for a sales guy.

Melissa Harms:

No way.

Melissa Harms:

No how so maybe past performance or income or, there's just some allowance

Melissa Harms:

for a lot of different factors besides that just being your educational degrees.

Jerremy Newsome:

I am sure AI could track that somewhere, Dave, easily.

Jerremy Newsome:

It could be some relatively simple database, but again, it'd

Jerremy Newsome:

be a good opportunity as well about built out and tracked and

Jerremy Newsome:

measured because that'd be cool.

Jerremy Newsome:

Kinda like the credit system, which is also totally broken,

Jerremy Newsome:

but it's the least trackable.

Jerremy Newsome:

People can log in and see what's going on.

Melissa Harms:

I, I'm at large.

Melissa Harms:

I'm not a fan of people from the outside coming in to run the government.

Melissa Harms:

Thinking they know more than everybody else.

Melissa Harms:

But that said, I do think there's ways you could privatize some of this, to start a

Melissa Harms:

system using real world common sense about how to make the immigration system work.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah, totally.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's that's a huge blue ocean of opportunity in my opinion.

Jerremy Newsome:

Just especially, and the conversation we had last podcast was about the forms

Jerremy Newsome:

and and helping, all the documentation needs to happen for the undocumented

Jerremy Newsome:

immigrants who are trying to come in and they just, they've already been here

Jerremy Newsome:

for sec seven years and they feel right.

Jerremy Newsome:

Just go through this whole process, like, how can we speed up everything

Jerremy Newsome:

And give the ability for lawyers to, or.

Jerremy Newsome:

Judges to just see things so much faster, articulate things, so much faster,

Jerremy Newsome:

document things so much faster, become aware of the problem, the solutions so

Jerremy Newsome:

much quicker, turn days into minutes using some AI scanning tools, logging tools,

Jerremy Newsome:

metric tools, things of that nature.

Jerremy Newsome:

Again, probably we privatize, but ultimately is just still a product that

Jerremy Newsome:

right now would be extremely helpful.

Melissa Harms:

Yeah I mean with, so my role with our National Lawyers

Melissa Harms:

Association was with I was head of the government collaboration subcommittee

Melissa Harms:

of the technology innovation.

Melissa Harms:

And so I worked with U-S-C-I-S and some of the stupid stuff

Melissa Harms:

that we're doing right now.

Melissa Harms:

So we, when I file an H one B petition, I can file it online now, but if I

Melissa Harms:

file an H one B work thing online, I can't use my private case management

Melissa Harms:

system that I use to get all the information from these people securely.

Melissa Harms:

I can't use that data and hook it up to U-S-C-I-S right now, there is no

Melissa Harms:

there's no way to connect those two.

Jerremy Newsome:

Crazy.

Melissa Harms:

I wanna file something electronically, I have to input the

Melissa Harms:

data myself or my team does, right?

Melissa Harms:

So much data.

Melissa Harms:

So I don't file petitions electronically.

Melissa Harms:

Now, some firms have worked around this and used done their own sort of API

Melissa Harms:

to make it work that USAS doesn't want them doing, but they have done that.

Melissa Harms:

But USAS hasn't created APIs that we can use with our private system.

Melissa Harms:

So then we have to input everything manually.

Melissa Harms:

So that means I am still sending paper applications

Melissa Harms:

into U-S-C-I-S, which is giant.

Melissa Harms:

And the way, my team is all, we all are.

Melissa Harms:

We work.

Melissa Harms:

In various places around the country.

Melissa Harms:

So we upload, we have PDFs, everything stored securely, and then what we

Melissa Harms:

have to do is print that PDF, put it in a FedEx mailer, mail it to

Melissa Harms:

USAS, and then U-S-C-I-S has a team of people scanning in our paper.

Melissa Harms:

Okay?

Melissa Harms:

So my question was, why can't you let us upload that PDF until you

Melissa Harms:

have an API where our databases can talk, let us upload that you

Melissa Harms:

get to fire all your scanners.

Melissa Harms:

I get to save paper and, environmental costs of the shipping.

Melissa Harms:

And they promise us that by the end of fiscal year 2024 has not happened.

Melissa Harms:

Has not happened.

Melissa Harms:

We cannot upload an application yet.

Melissa Harms:

So that's tiny.

Melissa Harms:

That's a tiny idea of how bad U-S-C-I-S is, they need to be.

Melissa Harms:

U-S-C-I-S could be completely cleared out as far as I'm concerned

Melissa Harms:

and start it over again, but,

Dave Conley:

And it's an extraordinarily simple change, right?

Dave Conley:

Like a, a tech team could put that together in no time.

Dave Conley:

Even with archaic systems.

Dave Conley:

I know this because I did government computer work and I know how bad

Dave Conley:

those systems are, but something like accepting A PDF and then, but

Dave Conley:

because they have to scan it back into some system anyways is bonkers.

Dave Conley:

We had a guest last week that, for his wife they had to take physical photos

Dave Conley:

down to an office of their wedding to prove that they had gotten married.

Dave Conley:

And it was like I don't even know where to print photos.

Dave Conley:

What would I do?

Dave Conley:

What is this?

Melissa Harms:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

it, you've been doing this for 25 years.

Dave Conley:

25 years from now, what would you say we got right?

Dave Conley:

And what would you say we got wrong?

Melissa Harms:

You mean where do I see it going the next 25 years

Dave Conley:

i.

Melissa Harms:

Yeah.

Melissa Harms:

I don't know.

Melissa Harms:

I'm scared to answer that question because I think we're all very scared about the

Melissa Harms:

practice of immigration law in general.

Melissa Harms:

One thing, and this isn't really to the government, but we're all very

Melissa Harms:

scared of what AI is gonna do to immigration law because, there's,

Melissa Harms:

immigration is incredibly complex.

Melissa Harms:

People think I just fill out a form and that's all I do.

Melissa Harms:

But there are so many nuances to what we do.

Melissa Harms:

If what we see is that kind of the dumbing down of immigration law where people are

Melissa Harms:

going to be getting in trouble 'cause they're doing things through AI and

Melissa Harms:

not understanding all the implications.

Melissa Harms:

So that's one that's looking at more the practice of immigration law.

Melissa Harms:

But then in terms of what I see, our country right now is being fed

Melissa Harms:

so many, lies about immigration.

Melissa Harms:

And I think what my goal is for people to get out of this is read the facts

Melissa Harms:

on what immigration does for our economy, how they're not replacing us

Melissa Harms:

workers, the e the economic benefits, the taxes that immigrants pay.

Melissa Harms:

All of these positives about immigration, our country.

Melissa Harms:

Rich history with immigration.

Melissa Harms:

We are a nation of immigrants.

Melissa Harms:

And the last really big amnesty program was by Ronald

Melissa Harms:

Reagan, a Republican, in 1986.

Melissa Harms:

And there were a lot of positives out of that 1986 amnesty including my

Melissa Harms:

best friend who's now a US citizen, because she was unlawful back in 1986.

Melissa Harms:

No, but there's just the, for the American people to get the truth

Melissa Harms:

because I think particularly in some areas of the country people feel

Melissa Harms:

like immigrants are taking away their jobs, and that's simply not the case.

Melissa Harms:

And so I think that is more what I wanna shout from the rooftops

Melissa Harms:

is get the facts out there.

Melissa Harms:

Read about the economic benefits of immigration and how can we do this right.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

And again, I think we blend both immigration challenges together in

Jerremy Newsome:

the same bucket far too often as well, just from a media standpoint.

Jerremy Newsome:

If you go to a county fair and start talking to people about

Jerremy Newsome:

immigration, they think it's just people coming across the borders.

Jerremy Newsome:

They're not even thinking about the area where you're in or the corporations

Jerremy Newsome:

you're in, their business you're in.

Jerremy Newsome:

We're like, Hey, we're hiring talent and it's a large number of people and we need

Jerremy Newsome:

that talent 'cause we're growing, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

The country's growing.

Jerremy Newsome:

And to surmise it, for me, it really comes down to almost an abundance versus

Jerremy Newsome:

scarcity mindset where you'll hear that in books, you'll hear that in programs or

Jerremy Newsome:

like your random woowoo Instagram channel.

Jerremy Newsome:

But if we really think about the abundance approach.

Jerremy Newsome:

We're saying is there's more than enough.

Jerremy Newsome:

There's more than enough to go around.

Jerremy Newsome:

There's plenty.

Jerremy Newsome:

And if we approach it from the scarcity of there's not enough, we

Jerremy Newsome:

need to shrink, we need to close, we need to be scared, we need to

Jerremy Newsome:

be worried, we need to be panicked.

Jerremy Newsome:

There's not enough jobs.

Jerremy Newsome:

AI's gonna take everything.

Jerremy Newsome:

Everyone's gonna fight tooth to nail.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's a scarcity mindset, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

There isn't a post abundance, post scarcity world coming too, where

Jerremy Newsome:

everyone has more than enough.

Jerremy Newsome:

Everyone has opportunities like that also exists, and it's gonna require

Jerremy Newsome:

some level of just bigger thinking.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I really like that approach.

Jerremy Newsome:

So where it's like, Hey, listen, this is adding to our economy

Jerremy Newsome:

and the best way is imaginable.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's what created this country after we settled it, in the ginormous open gate of

Jerremy Newsome:

all the immigrations that we allowed in the late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that's what caused this country to become massive, incredible, just

Jerremy Newsome:

this generous, overflowing cornucopia of the world's largest economy.

Jerremy Newsome:

We brought everyone together and we had that abundant mindset.

Jerremy Newsome:

We didn't fall into the scarcity, into the beliefs that there's not enough.

Melissa Harms:

And that said I wouldn't go so far to say open borders, but we need

Melissa Harms:

a common sense approach and we do need to think about the job market in particular,

Melissa Harms:

as being, we just want it bigger.

Melissa Harms:

We want it bigger and bigger.

Melissa Harms:

And the more opportunities we create, the better off we are.

Melissa Harms:

And so far, I would say over my 25 years, I feel like immigration has been

Melissa Harms:

a limiting factor for economic growth.

Melissa Harms:

Particularly, everything I've seen when I started back in 2000, it's

Melissa Harms:

like everything's gotten worse.

Melissa Harms:

There's nothing where I can say, oh, this has gotten so much better.

Melissa Harms:

I feel like everything has gotten worse.

Melissa Harms:

That's where you, when you ask me to go 25 years in the future, I'm

Melissa Harms:

like, how much worse can I get?

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

We need to make some changes now.

Jerremy Newsome:

We hope that this podcast will at least inspire a few

Jerremy Newsome:

thousand people to do just that.

Jerremy Newsome:

Not only make that change, make that shift, but be aware

Jerremy Newsome:

create maybe new policies.

Jerremy Newsome:

As you mentioned, take something from the private sector, bring

Jerremy Newsome:

into the governmental sector just in case it can speed up processes.

Jerremy Newsome:

We've used the word archaic way too much.

Jerremy Newsome:

We shouldn't be using it this much.

Jerremy Newsome:

It is 20, 25.

Jerremy Newsome:

PDFs shouldn't be mailed into anything, anywhere, ever again.

Jerremy Newsome:

especially for someone's livelihood,

Melissa Harms:

Yep.

Jerremy Newsome:

right?

Jerremy Newsome:

For someone's life.

Jerremy Newsome:

You mentioned families, children, jobs, like that's really what this is.

Jerremy Newsome:

This is economy.

Jerremy Newsome:

This is growing.

Jerremy Newsome:

It does not, should not need word archaic shouldn't be here anymore.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I just wanna motivate and encourage everyone who's here and everyone who's

Jerremy Newsome:

listening, we have opportunities.

Jerremy Newsome:

They're all around us.

Jerremy Newsome:

We just have to look for them.

Jerremy Newsome:

We have to find them.

Jerremy Newsome:

And Melissa, thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge, your

Jerremy Newsome:

excitement, your details about this topic, and giving us a glimmer of not

Jerremy Newsome:

only hope, but just also solutions.

Jerremy Newsome:

Easy implications, easy applications that can be upgraded, updated, and

Jerremy Newsome:

changed to make this a better, faster, quicker, more efficient process.

Melissa Harms:

Thanks, Jerremy.

Melissa Harms:

It was a pleasure to talk to you and Dave and I look forward to

Melissa Harms:

your resolution of this crisis.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you, Melissa.

Jerremy Newsome:

Awesome guest.

Jerremy Newsome:

Very informative, very smart, great talker.

Dave Conley:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

A lot of good content.

Jerremy Newsome:

Was able to carry a lot of stuff for us.

Jerremy Newsome:

You asked amazing questions.

Dave Conley:

this whole thing has surprised me.

Dave Conley:

What did you learn?

Jerremy Newsome:

You know the part that intrigues me.

Jerremy Newsome:

Is that as a country of this size, we do just have such mundane processes

Jerremy Newsome:

that I'm just trying to figure out why.

Jerremy Newsome:

I know that's why Elon was like, listen, I'm just gonna come in, throw

Jerremy Newsome:

a couple hundred million dollars.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm gonna create the Department of Government efficiency and poof, we'll

Jerremy Newsome:

have a more effective government.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that dude who freaking blows up rockets and was

Jerremy Newsome:

like, nah, that's too hard.

Jerremy Newsome:

Let's make 'em sit.

Jerremy Newsome:

Let's make 'em come back to the same planet, the same launch launching pad.

Jerremy Newsome:

Let's reuse a rocket over and over.

Jerremy Newsome:

guy was like, nah, this is too tough.

Dave Conley:

This,

Jerremy Newsome:

Where is this?

Dave Conley:

The guy who builds all of these incredible businesses

Dave Conley:

launches things into space like an actual rocket scientist built brand

Dave Conley:

new cars, tunnels under the ground.

Dave Conley:

The government broke him.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah,

Dave Conley:

yeah,

Jerremy Newsome:

in three months.

Jerremy Newsome:

And yeah, man, I'm just like that.

Jerremy Newsome:

Why are we doing it in such a backend?

Jerremy Newsome:

1947, our girl, Melissa's a 25-year-old top tier attorney for huge, mega

Jerremy Newsome:

businesses and is mailing in documentation that her team is running down by hand

Jerremy Newsome:

because she needs to get people's visas so they can have jobs, so they can

Jerremy Newsome:

support their family, so they can spend.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thousands of dollars a year on these stupid taxes that we're probably just

Jerremy Newsome:

throwing away at people for no reason.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's what I'm learning, man.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm excited to fix and update a lot of these challenges and problems

Jerremy Newsome:

because I know it's possible.

Jerremy Newsome:

I know it's doable and it's just connecting with, I love that she

Jerremy Newsome:

said the word, the private market.

Jerremy Newsome:

I am on the exact opposite end of that discussion where I think the

Jerremy Newsome:

privatized sector is where we've probably fixed most of the government.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I don't believe that the government shouldn't be people that

Jerremy Newsome:

are not probably a double negative.

Jerremy Newsome:

They should be filled with people who did come from the private

Jerremy Newsome:

sector, who just were citizens.

Jerremy Newsome:

We're like, Hey, I've done some really cool things.

Jerremy Newsome:

Now my money's figured out.

Jerremy Newsome:

For the most part, I'm not gonna take a bunch of money from other

Jerremy Newsome:

countries or corporations or companies to make my lifestyle better.

Jerremy Newsome:

'cause that's obviously illegal and I shouldn't be doing that.

Jerremy Newsome:

So I'm just gonna be a public servant and just make this stuff

Jerremy Newsome:

run better and quicker, efficient.

Jerremy Newsome:

My job is to literally sit down and figure how to solve this problem

Jerremy Newsome:

within this domain that I'm focused on.

Jerremy Newsome:

I do not think that immigration should be as federally overwhelming as it is.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think I've mentioned that before.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think there should be other departments, other governments, other

Jerremy Newsome:

efficiencies that should also be handling that where it's not the deporter in

Jerremy Newsome:

chief, Obama, or it's not Trump who are like, this is not the way it is.

Jerremy Newsome:

And now I have the 16th largest military in the world ICE all this.

Jerremy Newsome:

And we're not spending time to make it quicker, more

Jerremy Newsome:

efficient and less militaristic.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that just seems weird to me.

Jerremy Newsome:

And this is a very fascinating topic.

Jerremy Newsome:

And again, it is one of the ones to me and many of them have been for sure.

Jerremy Newsome:

But this is one where I'm like, wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

Wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

We wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

It affects so many people, so blatantly every single day.

Jerremy Newsome:

yes, education and my main component does affect people daily, but it's

Jerremy Newsome:

also gonna be something that's gonna be longer term effects, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Like when you study.

Jerremy Newsome:

Taxes and we study the stock market.

Jerremy Newsome:

When we study money and we study finance and we study health, those are effects

Jerremy Newsome:

that do prolong themselves, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

They take weeks, months, maybe even years, but this is one that's been affecting

Jerremy Newsome:

people for decades and will continue to affect people for decades, but affects

Jerremy Newsome:

people in everyday life right now, on a big scale, no one is seemingly doing

Jerremy Newsome:

anything about it, and it's quite wild.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's what I learned.

Jerremy Newsome:

Hand it over.

Dave Conley:

Okay.

Dave Conley:

What did I learn?

Dave Conley:

I learned that we spend all of our time talking about illegal and

Dave Conley:

alligator alley and deportations and all of the money goes to that.

Dave Conley:

Yet this topic, legal, immigration, people wanting jobs.

Dave Conley:

This should be the number one discussion point when it comes to immigration.

Dave Conley:

it's fear mongering.

Dave Conley:

in comparison to this.

Dave Conley:

These are people who are building the economy, building the next stuff, building

Dave Conley:

the things that we need in this country.

Dave Conley:

Pathways to citizenship, pathways to, blue collar jobs and the people

Dave Conley:

who we need to build this country.

Dave Conley:

I think that this legal immigration thing needs to be the number one

Dave Conley:

thing that we're talking about.

Dave Conley:

And in a way, I think that solves the undocumented

Dave Conley:

All of these people are here for a lot of different reasons, but

Dave Conley:

primarily, we've learned that a lot of it's economically driven.

Dave Conley:

you want to be in the United States.

Dave Conley:

These are the people who are building our homes and building our

Jerremy Newsome:

Yep.

Dave Conley:

and harvesting food and all those things.

Dave Conley:

And so the, this discussion needs to be about.

Dave Conley:

Jobs and business and economics and what's right for America.

Dave Conley:

And I think that solves the illegal immigration part of this.

Dave Conley:

So I think that we are focused on the wrong things.

Dave Conley:

the second thing I learned is I think states should be pretty involved.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah, dude.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like

Jerremy Newsome:

Over here.

Jerremy Newsome:

So I asked a question and after I asked, I was like, am I an idiot?

Dave Conley:

I

Jerremy Newsome:

for asking that question?

Jerremy Newsome:

'cause she's right.

Dave Conley:

bonkers.

Jerremy Newsome:

federal, but there's no one going into the federal government

Jerremy Newsome:

from an immigration standpoint.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's a hundred percent states that get affected.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's it.

Jerremy Newsome:

Who else?

Dave Conley:

And it's different for.

Jerremy Newsome:

Each state.

Dave Conley:

states like Arizona, Texas Florida, California.

Dave Conley:

There's different needs, different aspects to this.

Dave Conley:

Like why aren't states sponsoring these H one visas or they have their own visa?

Dave Conley:

It's okay, yeah, but you gotta work in California.

Dave Conley:

Oh, boohoo.

Dave Conley:

I think would be even more valuable is rural, we've talked about this

Dave Conley:

with housing, like rural community sponsoring people to be like,

Dave Conley:

come on in, we got plenty of land.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yep.

Dave Conley:

jobs to fill.

Dave Conley:

It's come on.

Dave Conley:

We welcome you, rather than the whole eating our dogs, eating the cats thing.

Dave Conley:

It's no, come to America and work in our rural hospitals and work in

Dave Conley:

our, I think states should be deeply involved and there's a disproportionate

Dave Conley:

impact for states like Texas.

Dave Conley:

So they're gonna have different, they're gonna have different.

Dave Conley:

Problems too.

Dave Conley:

And Texas has different problems than Florida, even though we both

Dave Conley:

have a high immigrant population, so states need to be involved.

Dave Conley:

And then the last part on the solution thing is that this thing hasn't really

Dave Conley:

substantively been touched since 1965, and then again in the eighties and a little

Dave Conley:

bit, under DACA with President Obama.

Dave Conley:

This thing is a patchwork of mess, mainly designed by special interest,

Dave Conley:

probably, like being very protectionist and they don't know what left

Dave Conley:

hand is affecting the right hand.

Dave Conley:

So that's created this Byzantine thing.

Dave Conley:

And politicians, which we've said over and over again, know nothing about this.

Dave Conley:

And the people that do know it.

Dave Conley:

Need to be designing these systems.

Dave Conley:

Those are business people and those are the immigrants themselves.

Dave Conley:

And we get those two groups together in a public private partnership

Dave Conley:

with saying, okay, are the things that we need to build in America.

Dave Conley:

These are the social aspects of this, and these are the immigrants

Dave Conley:

and immigrant experiences.

Dave Conley:

We'd have a really sane immigration plan.

Dave Conley:

We talked about like the points-based system.

Dave Conley:

Like I am sure that a sane immigration plan that isn't open to all the borders

Dave Conley:

and isn't nobody comes in, come out of this because what we have now is, again,

Dave Conley:

medieval, we're gonna keep saying that.

Jerremy Newsome:

Team, if this is firing you up as much as it is myself

Jerremy Newsome:

and Dave Conley, let just promote this episode, promote this entire podcast.

Jerremy Newsome:

Do what you can, and hit us with those five star reviews.

Jerremy Newsome:

Listen, if you've got a 14-year-old son that has a phone, take it from him.

Jerremy Newsome:

up the podcast, click that five star review, write a quick review.

Jerremy Newsome:

The more reviews, the more stars that we get, the more people that will listen.

Jerremy Newsome:

The bigger the audience.

Jerremy Newsome:

The bigger the audience, the more solutions that we will not only

Jerremy Newsome:

think about, know about, hear about, but we will be able to create.

Jerremy Newsome:

You can find us, solve USA Pod on X or solving America's

Jerremy Newsome:

Problems podcast Instagram.

Jerremy Newsome:

We are gonna still be here.

Jerremy Newsome:

We're gonna continue to pour into you.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you so much for being a listener.

Jerremy Newsome:

You rock.

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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.