00:00The context is companies that take the financial hit but also states that try to push back on it
00:06and the latest is that we understand a group of states are actually suing to block this in
00:11particular. Do you think that that's going to gain any traction? I do think that it's going to gain
00:18traction because what the states are doing that's different than some of the lawsuits that have
00:22already been filed is they're making a legal argument based on their specific state economies
00:29which I think is a really important argument because it goes directly against the claim
00:33that a lot of opponents to the H-1B visa have that the H-1B visa is actually harmful for the U.S.
00:39economy. The lawsuit that was filed by California and the 19 additional states essentially argues
00:45that this $100,000 fee is going to worsen labor shortages within other important sectors that
00:50exist within the state economy by making it more difficult to fill spots for occupations that are
00:56already experiencing shortages such as physicians or researchers or teachers nurses for example and
01:02so I think that this lawsuit puts states in a position where they can actually show harm in a way that's
01:07more effective than some of the lawsuits that have already been filed. Their argument is that no
01:13presidential administration can rewrite immigration law is what they're taking and I think it's the third
01:18challenge at least that we've seen to this particular fee increase but on the flip side the president and
01:24the administration would say we need this fee because H-1B is being abused. What evidence is there for
01:29that from your perspective Hiba? I think the more important evidence is when you take a look at the
01:35H-1B filing process in and of itself it actually has several checks and balances that are already built in
01:41to ensure that the H-1B visa is not being abused or misused in any way and in particular one of the core
01:49components of filing an H-1B visa is to be able to demonstrate back to the government that the filing of this visa is not
01:56going to displace a qualified U.S. worker. So I think that what's more important to focus on are the checks and
02:02balances and the safeguards that are already in place for the H-1B visa to prevent the fraud and misuse because the highly
02:10restrictive policies for folks that are actually proponents of the H-1B visa create a new category
02:17of risk which is that this is actually going to hamper and diminish the American innovation
02:23and the U.S. companies leading the charge on global innovation.
02:27Now we take it to another extreme and what's interesting is there's actually blowback not coming
02:33from Democrat states who are suing but actually conservative lawmakers who are saying that in
02:39some ways Trump is supporting yet more legal migration and immigration into the country.
02:45They're criticizing President Trump for supporting more visas in particular to allow the entry of
02:50high skilled foreign workers. Is there any mounting fervor around this that you're hearing here or something
02:58that companies are worried about that names like Republican Chip Roy would actually manage to prevent
03:03legal immigration at this time? I think you know I think that the concern in the industry is more so
03:10based on the data. I think that we're far out enough from the beginning of the year to be able to
03:16actually measure the data in an effective way and I think that what we're starting to see is U.S.
03:22companies starting to grapple with the decision about whether they want to continue to invest in
03:27other countries where the talent the high skilled workers in particular are more inclined to go
03:33as opposed to you know the talent that may be a little bit more concerned about staying here in
03:39the U.S. So said another way I think the concern in the industry is whether some of these larger
03:44companies are going to choose to offshore for example. And another really important component of this is a lot
03:51of the folks in the industry are actually specifically watching how other countries are responding to some of
03:57these more restrictive immigration policies you know namely you know China and Canada being some top
04:03examples. And for example you know China recently released the K visa for global tech talent which
04:09is specifically aimed at attracting international tech workers and that was done in direct response
04:14to the U.S. tightening its immigration policies and this new $100,000 fee. So what I think the concern is here
04:21is whether the talent is going to be incentivized to choose another country whether other countries are
04:27going to be more inclined to have more open immigration policies in an effort to try to attract
04:32that high skilled talent and what that eventually means for the global success of U.S. companies.
04:40We've got 30 seconds. Is it big companies that hurt the most here Hibber or is it smaller ones?
04:44So it's usually the larger tech companies in particular that garner the most attention but
04:50you know it's also important to point out that when it came to first time H-1B visa petitions for
04:56employment in fiscal year 2025 over 28,000 companies filed at least one.
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