Really enjoyed this episode. It felt educational, fair to the different perspectives, and had the right amount of depth when getting into some complicated issues.
Thank you for such a great episode! It's rare that I consume a piece of media about immigration that sheds light and not heat.
As an immigration lawyer that represents businesses in nuclear fusion, advanced robotics, biotech, hard sciences, etc. I am very familiar with the lack of home-grown talent in these areas. I add cost to the hiring process. If there were American PhDs and engineers in those fields, they would hire them and avoid spending money on me. However, there aren't a lot of plasma physicists working on the first wall problem inside a nuclear fusion reactor. My joke with folks is that if we get commercially available fusion, you can thank me that it happened in America because it's highly likely that I worked on one or more of the visas for the physicists involved. While many of my clients' employees can qualify for an O-1 extraordinary ability visa if I can put someone on an H-1B visa I do because it's a lot more objective.
The adjudication of extraordinary ability visas and green cards is insanely bad, unpredictable and often nonsensical. The criteria are also geared towards academics so it gets even tougher for folks who aren't in that space. I am tasked with explaining plasma physics to a non-technical immigration officer. It is maddening to get a request for evidence where the officer says that a MIT professor in physics isn't credible to discuss the international or national reputation of the O-1 applicant.
I wish folks could understand that for the very highly skilled it is incredibly difficult to get work permission in the U.S. -- it is not easy.
On the H-1B program I do think it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that my PhD super specialized level beneficiaries are competing against entry level tech folks who will be at the big IT contracting companies. I think reform is needed.
The other tough part about getting rid of per country quotas for employment based green cards is that you would basically cut off all green cards to every country in the world but India because of the existing backlogs. I think it would last 10 years of India only immigration. I would have to go back to the math. Backlog changes have already wreaked havoc for religious worker green cards in the EB-4 category.
I wanted to say thanks so much for this episode. I've listened to it three times. While I support immigration and abhor how President Trump is handling this issue, I feel we never get to deal with all the hard issues around immigration and that people with concerns like the impact of low-skilled immigration on jobs are treated with condescending answers. You are one of the few who doesn't talk down to people and give people the full scope of the issue.
I am wondering if you would consider doing a follow-up now that we are seeing some of the deportations and the halting of federal support of refugee resettlement happen. What is the story within the "fog of war?" How should those of us who want to keep our nation as a place welcoming to immigrants, but want a sane policy respond? What are the downsides to the hardline approach and what is a real alternative?
Again thanks for your refreshing story. Keep up the good work!
This is easy. Recent inbound were taking the jobs of past inbounds. So the installed base of immigrants voted to preserve self interest. Happened in almost every major city
Here is the link to every US RepublicanSenator. The fastest way to stop the carnage of what Trump is doing ,is to get this information/link to as many people as possible to call and to email each Republican Senator to appeal to their sense of justice and democracy and to stop Trump and the carnage that he is causing our country. They need to think about their children and grandchildren and their place in history. Are they going to be part of the dictatorship take over of the country or are they going to stand up to Trump and stand up for all Americans. We cannot wait we cannot sit back. We have to do as much as we can now in the beginning and try to do something to stop the horrendous nominations that Trump is trying to push through.
This message is going to be posted on many Substack so please copy ,cut and paste this to as many people, colleagues, family friends as possible and ask them to do the same to pass on the information to 5 of their friends, etc…to start calling and leaving messages to save our democracy and not be part of destroying it. This information can grow exponentially with everybody who sees the information and wants to do something passes it on to five or 10 more people asking them to do the same. We need millions of messages hitting Republican senators website and calling and messaging we have to do something now we could not sit back and this is something we can do before all the horrendous nominations for cabinet position positions are filled.
It’s the Republicans if we can get 10 Republicans to start thinking about protecting Americans and democracy none of Trump‘s horrendous nominations will get through and they can thwart a lot of his decisions moving forward .
Really enjoyed this episode. It felt educational, fair to the different perspectives, and had the right amount of depth when getting into some complicated issues.
Thank you for such a great episode! It's rare that I consume a piece of media about immigration that sheds light and not heat.
As an immigration lawyer that represents businesses in nuclear fusion, advanced robotics, biotech, hard sciences, etc. I am very familiar with the lack of home-grown talent in these areas. I add cost to the hiring process. If there were American PhDs and engineers in those fields, they would hire them and avoid spending money on me. However, there aren't a lot of plasma physicists working on the first wall problem inside a nuclear fusion reactor. My joke with folks is that if we get commercially available fusion, you can thank me that it happened in America because it's highly likely that I worked on one or more of the visas for the physicists involved. While many of my clients' employees can qualify for an O-1 extraordinary ability visa if I can put someone on an H-1B visa I do because it's a lot more objective.
The adjudication of extraordinary ability visas and green cards is insanely bad, unpredictable and often nonsensical. The criteria are also geared towards academics so it gets even tougher for folks who aren't in that space. I am tasked with explaining plasma physics to a non-technical immigration officer. It is maddening to get a request for evidence where the officer says that a MIT professor in physics isn't credible to discuss the international or national reputation of the O-1 applicant.
I wish folks could understand that for the very highly skilled it is incredibly difficult to get work permission in the U.S. -- it is not easy.
On the H-1B program I do think it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that my PhD super specialized level beneficiaries are competing against entry level tech folks who will be at the big IT contracting companies. I think reform is needed.
The other tough part about getting rid of per country quotas for employment based green cards is that you would basically cut off all green cards to every country in the world but India because of the existing backlogs. I think it would last 10 years of India only immigration. I would have to go back to the math. Backlog changes have already wreaked havoc for religious worker green cards in the EB-4 category.
I wanted to say thanks so much for this episode. I've listened to it three times. While I support immigration and abhor how President Trump is handling this issue, I feel we never get to deal with all the hard issues around immigration and that people with concerns like the impact of low-skilled immigration on jobs are treated with condescending answers. You are one of the few who doesn't talk down to people and give people the full scope of the issue.
I am wondering if you would consider doing a follow-up now that we are seeing some of the deportations and the halting of federal support of refugee resettlement happen. What is the story within the "fog of war?" How should those of us who want to keep our nation as a place welcoming to immigrants, but want a sane policy respond? What are the downsides to the hardline approach and what is a real alternative?
Again thanks for your refreshing story. Keep up the good work!
Been waiting for a good dive into this, glad you took the time it needed
Very, very enlightening and interesting, thanks!
This is easy. Recent inbound were taking the jobs of past inbounds. So the installed base of immigrants voted to preserve self interest. Happened in almost every major city
https://www.republicanleader.senate.gov/senate-resources/republican-senators
Here is the link to every US RepublicanSenator. The fastest way to stop the carnage of what Trump is doing ,is to get this information/link to as many people as possible to call and to email each Republican Senator to appeal to their sense of justice and democracy and to stop Trump and the carnage that he is causing our country. They need to think about their children and grandchildren and their place in history. Are they going to be part of the dictatorship take over of the country or are they going to stand up to Trump and stand up for all Americans. We cannot wait we cannot sit back. We have to do as much as we can now in the beginning and try to do something to stop the horrendous nominations that Trump is trying to push through.
This message is going to be posted on many Substack so please copy ,cut and paste this to as many people, colleagues, family friends as possible and ask them to do the same to pass on the information to 5 of their friends, etc…to start calling and leaving messages to save our democracy and not be part of destroying it. This information can grow exponentially with everybody who sees the information and wants to do something passes it on to five or 10 more people asking them to do the same. We need millions of messages hitting Republican senators website and calling and messaging we have to do something now we could not sit back and this is something we can do before all the horrendous nominations for cabinet position positions are filled.
It’s the Republicans if we can get 10 Republicans to start thinking about protecting Americans and democracy none of Trump‘s horrendous nominations will get through and they can thwart a lot of his decisions moving forward .
If not now, when ?