Only 65,000 H-1B visas exist per year! This is what decides it - Jeff Joseph

0:00Employers have always relied on that pipeline of talent, you know, and especially in engineering and tech, a lot of the foreign students are the ones that are studying in those fields. And so, you know, it'll be interesting to see how employers adapt. They do employers adapt, but we'll see how it impacts and plays off downstream.

0:22What would happen if we just told the truth? Welcome to TruthWorks, where we dig into the nitty-gritty of leadership and work. And what needs to change. I'm Jessica Neal. And I'm Patti McCord. Our journey together started in HR, but trust us, it's evolved into something wild, honest, and, well, a bit rebellious. So throw out the handbook. We're here to redefine rules to work for us, not against us. Let's dive into another episode.

1:00Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of TruthWorks. I'm your host, Jessica Neal, and I'm flying solo today, but that's okay because I want my guest all to myself. Today, I have Jeff Joseph here. And Jeff actually is, I guess you could say just started at a company that we have talked to on the show before we had the founder of this company come on. His name is Dan and the company is Manifest OS, but I'm excited to say that Manifest OS is now a sponsor of TruthWorks, which is just, I don't know, my little podcast entrepreneur hat. I'm just very proud of the show and I'm very proud that people want to be part of it and sponsor it.

1:44And I have to thank you listeners. It's because of you that they want to. So thank you. And Jeff, thank you and welcome to the show and thank you for joining Manifest. I want to talk all about it. How are you today? I'm awesome. I'm six weeks in at Manifest and I have to tell you we're super happy to sponsor your program. I think the message that you're getting out is very important for the community so we're happy to do it and I'm really happy to be here to talk to you today. Yay! Well good. Okay and enough about how great we are at TruthWorks. I want to talk about how great you are. So I I want to like, before we get into like all things manifest, I want to talk about your career because you've actually had a pretty spectacular career and you've accomplished a lot of things and probably in a field that folks don't really think about until they need to think about it, right?

2:38And that is in immigration. And I want to know, kind of go back in time, like what drew you to this? How did it all happen? Because you got pretty far up. there at some of these bigger law firms. Thank you. Yeah, no, I've been incredibly blessed to have found this career. I was one of those kids who was not very athletic, but I could argue my way to any sort of victory. And so I kind of knew early on that I had the skill set to be a lawyer. I remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird and that sort of sealing the deal for me that I knew not only that I wanted to be a lawyer, but I wanted to be that sort of humanitarian civil rights lawyer.

3:18And so when I, you know, did really well in high school debate and got a debate scholarship in college. And so the writing was on the wall for me. When I got to law school, I quickly sort of searched down human rights internships. And, you know, I didn't get into the schools that have big human rights programs, but I did, I was able to find some work doing asylum cases for, and at that time it was mainly people fleeing the former Soviet Union. So a lot of Orthodox Christians and Orthodox Jews, LGBTQ people who were persecuted under that regime. And now we were filing their asylum cases. So I did a little bit of that work in college, in law school.

3:58And then when I graduated law school, got a job with a corporate immigration firm. But I spoke Spanish and had a little bit of trial experience. So within that corporate immigration firm, I started building out a little removal defense family practice. And within a year and a half was very successful in that practice. And so my wife and I started our own law practice and worked together for 25 years. So we built out a full service immigration. You worked with your wife. I didn't know that. I did. We met in law school. Okay. Yeah. Well, that is, you know, takes a special relationship to be able to spend that much time together.

4:38Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, so my immigration story is a love story, too, because we were both public defenders at the time in law school. And the way that that system works is, you know, if a spot comes up anywhere in the state, you take it or you go to the bottom of the list. And so we were engaged, about to be married, and had the prospect of being, you know, on two different parts of the state. And so I was like, I'm going to take an immigration job so that I can avoid that. So immigration was sort of happenstance, but in many ways, you know, that happenstance sort of formed the basis of my career.

5:13Yeah, that's amazing. And so, you know, you sort of having this kind of desire as a kid, you got inspired by To Kill a Mockingbird and human rights. And then, you know, you fall in love, you take this immigration job so you don't have to be away from the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with. But what about the immigration sort of drew you in because you've stayed in it for your entire career? Did it fulfill something on that human rights sort of aspect of things? It did. I mean, you know, most people think of immigration as a border issue, but it's so much larger than that. It really touches on every corner of our economy, the way we live our lives, migration patterns, a whole bunch of things touch on immigration policy.

6:04And so, you know, I've had the experience of working in it. And the thing that I think drives me and keeps me coming at it is behind all of the policy, behind all the forms, behind all the cases, there's always a human being. And for that particular human being, this journey, this immigration journey is one of the most important things that they do in their lives. And that's something that, you know, when you're born in a country and you live in a country your whole life, you don't, that's not something you can understand that how important the immigration journey is for somebody going through it.

6:33Yeah, for sure. And it is the policy is changing all the time. Like, you know, it depends on who's in office and what have you. But, you know, there's always a new something that makes the process either less complicated or more complicated. And it's really hard to navigate if you don't have someone like you. Yeah, you know, it's immigration is really interesting because it it's a creature of the law, right? Congress created the Immigration and Nationality Act. But immigration is also a political wedge that can be used in campaigns, right, from both sides, the Republicans and the Democrats. And so there's not a lot of motivation to solve immigration through Congress when it can be used in political campaigns.

7:21Right. So what we see is administrations coming in, Democrats and Republican administrations coming in, and they have to do the work through executive orders by necessity, right? Because Congress isn't changing the law. Today's show is sponsored by Manifest Law. From startups to scale-ups to enterprise, Manifest Law is the AI native immigration law firm. Just think about that. AI native immigration law firm? Come on. This is great. There is no such thing, but there is Manifest Law. and they have all of your immigration needs handled. It's real-time visibility. It's fast filings. It's in over 40 countries.

8:04And did I mention the AI? It's got an AI-enabled workflows, a tech-forward experience, and straightforward pricing. So if you are in HR and you are doing a lot of immigration, Manifest Law is the solution for you. If I was running HR, guys, I'd be getting it. All right, go out there and check it out. And so as an immigration lawyer, I would imagine that, you know, sort of you have to play a completely bipartisan role because it's it's not about the, you know, the executive, you know, that's in office or whoever, but it's really about the person that you're trying to help and you're trying to help them navigate this system.

8:49Right. I mean, I think, you know, regardless of the politics, you know, you have to be able to maneuver, know the policies, know the regulations, know the, you know, how it happens in order to effectively guide clients. I would actually say that immigration is more tied to economics than politics. You know, it really is about where we have needs in our economy and where we have a gap of U.S. workers or workers that can't do the job. Most of the immigration system is set up to screen such that you're not replacing U.S. workers. So to me, it's much more tied into what we need and where the gaps are in our economy that aren't being filled by U.S.

9:26workers. Yeah. Well, let's talk about that because that's kind of interesting. So what are you seeing right now? Because, you know, from a hiring perspective, many of us are in the, you know, a lot of us work with technology and in Silicon Valley, but I think listeners have jobs that are all over the world in all different types of industries. But what are you seeing from a labor perspective in the U.S.? Like, where's the demand? Is it still primarily technology and bringing in that expertise? Or are you seeing it in other fields as well? We're seeing it across the board. I mean, I think obviously we're seeing it in technology, AI, you know, those kind of industries will always have the need because they're so rapidly growing and advancing.

10:13It's hard to see it, to talk about it in terms of demand, really, in immigration, because the truth is the visa that we rely on most for those type of jobs is what we call the H-1B visas, which is for highly specialized jobs. But it's hard to talk about it in terms of demand because there's only 65 ,000 of those visas available every year. And the demand for foreign labor is way, way higher than 65 ,000, right? So it's not so much a demand issue. It's a, you know, it's a luck issue. It's who gets, you know, who, A, one of the things that changed this year is that the higher wages you pay, the more of a chance you have of getting one of those 65 ,000 number.

10:52So one of the things that's happening in the industry now is the bigger you are, the bigger of a company you are, and the more able you are to pay the wage, the higher your chances of selection, which is great unless you're a small business or a nonprofit or a rural hospital or something like that that can't afford those wages. So that's one of the things we're seeing is that smaller businesses are being desperately impacted by this new wage rule. Right. We also see, you know, sort of a pipeline issue from student to H-1B, right, where there's a lot more restrictions against students now with cutting off duration of status and getting rid of optional practical training that that's usually the pipeline that companies use to bring in workers.

11:37Right. So if you're if you're a student here from overseas and you're studying, you don't get as long to kind of figure out your situation after you graduate. I'm right, essentially is what it is. Like you pretty much have to leave. Yeah, I mean, you know, it used to be that you're allowed to remain in the country as a student as long as you're in status, right? As long as you're maintaining 12 credits. So theoretically, if you get your bachelor's degree, then your master's degree, then your PhD, and then you work, you can be here for several years. This new rule truncates that to four years. And so you don't get duration of status anymore.

12:13It cuts the grace period down to 30 days. So it does a lot to sort of eliminate the flexibility that students had to move between programs, to change majors, to do things like that. So, yeah, it is going to impact, I think, the pipeline for talent. Well, yeah, it's essentially not great because. You know, if if you are a student here and let's say you pick the wrong major and you're really good at engineering and you're not as good at finance, right, or you're not as passionate about it, you're kind of stuck. Right. You can't you can't switch that that major and go learn more. You can, but it becomes it becomes really, really hard to stay on track in terms of what you want to do for your for your OPT planning.

12:57I think for employers, the bigger problem is, you know, those F1s when they're graduating, most likely they're going into entry level jobs. Right. Which means that the employer is going to be paying the lowest wage for those jobs, which means they're not going to meet their criteria. Yeah. Yeah. So they're, you know, they have the least likely chance of getting selected for H-1B. So we're, you know, we're bringing in all of these students every year and educating them, you know, sometimes half a million students a year. But there's only a spot for 65 ,000 of them. And even with that, only if they're being paid the highest wage.

13:31So the reality is, you know, the pathway for students is narrowing quite rapidly under this administration. Right. And for the higher wage, you're going to have to be in a field like engineering. Exactly. And that's what employers are struggling with now. Yeah. And graduating from one of the top tier schools. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That that sort of creates a. A bad dichotomy, you know, have and have nots. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, we've all employers have always relied on that pipeline of talent, you know, and especially in engineering and tech. A lot of the foreign students are the ones that are studying in those fields.

14:15And so, you know, it'll be interesting to see how employers adapt. They do employers adapt, but we'll see how what how it impacts and plays off downstream. Yeah. And do you see like the, you know, there's so much talk, you know, within the government around AI and AI infrastructure and data centers and all the things that, you know, we're going to have to build to scale to get all the benefits and realities of what AI is possible of in years to come. Do you see them thinking about being more flexible on some of these things or open, you know, like, are there people lobbying for, you know, change and difference with that in mind?

15:01I think so. I mean, you know, one of the things that I think is going to happen very soon in the immigration space is electronic filing. Right now, everything that we file is paper based, which is, you know, if you think about thousands and thousands of applications, it's just it's crazy that we do that. So I think once we go towards modernization and the government starting to accept electronic filing, I think that, you know, the pathway for AI companies to move into that and automatically adapt their systems is going to be really great. You know, I know what we know for right now is that the government is using AI, right?

15:34They're using it in their adjudications. They're using it to read through cases before they go to court. So the government is using it in immigration cases. And, you know, it's just a matter of time before most immigration attorneys are also utilizing it to make cases more efficient and effective. Do you think they'll ever, like, change the limit of 65 ,000? I don't know. I mean, I think getting anything done that requires a statutory fix and getting anything fixed in the statute is like a pipe dream. Right. Because once you open up that for H1Bs, you're opening up the universe for other immigration changes.

16:06So if I'm being completely honest with you after 30 years doing this, the answer is no. I don't think they'll ever change the 65 ,000. Because it's, you know, I think it's been at that for a very long time. Yeah, I mean, you know, it used to be that in certain categories, like, for example, you could you could do returning workers, right? If you had a returning worker, they were exempt from the cap. Congress let that provision sunset. So that went away. And so you can't rely on sort of returning workers to get around the cap. You only can rely on sort of the cap exempt cap exemptions. So, yeah, I mean, you know, it's a challenge.

16:45It's a problem. I think, you know, the future world, if you ask me what makes most sense is we have the data, the granular data on a local level. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is able to crunch data on a local level and say, you know, in Silicon Valley, here are the jobs that we need. In, you know, rural Fort Morgan, Colorado, here are the jobs we need. And allocate visas based on that, right? So in areas where you need more H-1Bs, give more H-1Bs. In areas where you need more agriculture visas, give more agriculture visas. So making it real and not arbitrary is, to me, where we should be going is really responsive to the economy.

17:25Well, yeah, and that makes perfect sense. Is there a desire to do that or not really? Not really. I mean, I think a lot of the policy think tanks have proposed using BLS data to sort of drive immigration policy, but it hasn't sort of taken effect. And again, that would require a massive statutory change. Right, which isn't likely going to happen. So fascinating. Okay, so you spend your career doing this. You're helping people at a very special time in their lives. When I ran HR at Netflix, I originally actually started out at Netflix running all of recruiting. So many people on the show know that that's where my roots are.

18:08And the immigration process was always, I always looked at it from a human perspective. And, you know, if I was going through this, what would I want that experience to be? And I had seen many companies not take as much care and not have as much transparency maybe around the process. And for me, I wanted to not only make it a great experience, even though you're having to do all of this paperwork and all of these things, but also make it easy. And then by doing that, the added bonus was that because we did this really well and we were very flexible about it, we didn't have sort of like you had to be at the company for a very short amount of time for us to start this process.

19:03It was actually a competitive advantage at the end of the day for us in getting talent because we were so willing to be flexible and thinking outside the box. And, you know, if the H-1B cap had been reached, we would be creative about other visas we could potentially get and O-1s and so forth and so forth. But it really was, I think, an important part of our strategy. And I think there's probably lots of other companies that believe the same way. But I had seen, unfortunately, a lot of companies who didn't put enough thinking and effort around what they really wanted that experience to be. Do you see the same out there in the world?

19:49Or are companies, maybe they are taking it as seriously as I did? Yeah, I mean, there's a reason you were extraordinarily successful in your job, because you did see it as, you know, a human experience, not just as sort of a corollary task that you have to do in your HR function, right? Because I think that most foreign nationals going through this process see immigration as one of their benefits, just like retirement and health insurance. It's the company's treatment of them and how they handle their immigration is to them as important as those other types of benefits. Right. So really working with your immigration counsel to give you sort of really good guidance about knowing your company, knowing your company's values, knowing how they prioritize budgets, etc.

20:36And then really working with the global mobility managers and in-house counsel to structure portfolios and programs in immigration that are focused on recruitment, retention, keeping that talent, right? Because the truth is, it's easy on an H-1B to port to a different employer, right? You can start work for a new employer on the filing of the application. So we really want to keep that talent in-house. And the best way to do that is to have really good, proactive, immigrant-friendly sponsorship policies. So that can include things like, you know, we'll pay for premium processing. We'll sponsor dependents.

21:08We did all of those things. Yeah, we won't wait a year for your green card. You know, we'll sponsor you faster. If you don't get selected by the H, we'll look at maybe sending you abroad for a year and maybe bringing you back in on an L, right? So sort of creative solutions that keep people on the payroll rather than make them feel like an outsider. Yeah. And I think, you know, because as we talked about, the policies are kind of always changing. This, you know, they don't want to get thrown out of the country. They want to stay here. They want to be productive. They want to, you know, they want to make a living and take care of their families.

21:49And so having not to worry about anything, I think, and you just take that worry away, it's such a relief to people. And that, I think, builds a level of trust with that person, a sense of loyalty with that person. And again, at the end of the day, you just, I always think about no matter, you know, whether it's immigration or whatever an employee journey is going through, it's that experience. They're all humans. And as humans, we all have things going on in our life. And if we can build an infrastructure that allows people to not worry about things that you can kind of take off their plate, and then that way they can be more productive and contribute more and be happy when they're stressed out about all these other things, that adds friction into the system that is unnecessary.

22:45And it's a big distraction. And it takes, you know, not to say we want people working all the time, but it distracts them from work. Yeah. Yeah. My favorite cases are the ones where I'm working with an employer. You know, we bring on an F1 student in OPT. We get them an H1B. They get selected in the lottery. We get them an H1B. We start their green card process. We get them a green card for them and their family. And then five years later, we're getting them their citizenship. And, you know, being able to go through the entire immigration journey with somebody from student to citizen is something that very few people get to do.

23:17And it's so rewarding. You know, in those cases where I've done that, I always go to their citizenship interviews because it's so cool to be there at that moment when, you know, for them, it's one of the greatest moments of their lives. And to be there on the journey with them and to be able to watch it happen is it's really rewarding as a lawyer. Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about Manifest. I want to talk about this company because I'm actually, you know, I'm not just excited because you guys are a sponsor of the show. I'm just excited as someone that has had to work with immigration for my entire career that now there is a company that is disrupting how things are being done.

24:00And it just, I can't think of anyone that really kind of disrupted immigration, at least in my career. It's always just been the same. And you work with this law firm or you work with this law firm that's bigger or this one that's more boutique. And, you know, you try to get the best law firm that you can. But you guys are really taking a different look at it. And it's, I think, going to be not only extremely helpful for people that are going through immigration, but extremely helpful to the corporations that you're working with. Yeah. So, you know, Manifest is built on a very different model.

24:39You know, the traditional law firm model, especially in immigration, generally you have one attorney, four paralegals, right, that work on a client or a case. And the profits sort of flow up. They trickle up, right? So when you make money on a case, the people that make the most money on it are the equity partners. They're the ones that share in the profits. Well, when you have that, and that's always been the way that law firms have been set up, not just immigration, but all law firms historically have been set up on this sort of equity partner model. But the problem with that model is when the partners are taking the profits, there's very little incentive to invest in things like technology, right?

25:14And that's been fine historically. But now where technology is moving at the pace that it is, that inability to invest in the infrastructure is going to be problematic for law firms. Because, you know, number one, if you're relying on human beings to do the work, you have to have real estate. So when you have headcount and real estate, that cost gets passed on to the client. Right. And the manifest model is built around disruption where we don't have equity partners. We don't have owners that are getting profits distribution. Rather, the lawyers have shares in the company itself. So there's every investment to reinvest back into the company and into the technology.

25:55And we're letting the technology do the work, the production-based work of the paralegals. So we don't have the headcount and we're fully remote, so we don't have the real estate. So all of those costs are getting passed on to the client. We're able to lower costs, which means we're able to increase access to justice and provide more individual representation to immigrants outside of the B2B context and the B2C context. So for many reasons, we're lowering costs, we're expanding access to services, and we're creating a world where lawyers get to really be lawyers, right? They're not doing all the tasks and the administrative stuff.

26:29They're really holding the client's hand through the process, providing a lot of compassion and empathy. in a world where we're taking on a lot of the front-end and back-end administrative functions of a lawyer, we're not bogging them down with that. So they're able to really do the complex thinking and hand-holding and compassion-based work that immigration requires. And so it ends up being a more rewarding job for lawyers, which means that we're able to attract really good talent to do the work. Yeah. And so is that sort of the reasons a lawyer will want to work on your platform is because they have the ability to be the lawyer they always wanted to be versus the lawyer that they have to be, which is bogged down in paperwork and process.