immigration uncovered podcast

Featuring

James Pittman

James Pittman

Docketwise

David Cantor, Esq.

David Cantor, Esq.

Director of Partnerships at The Build Fellowship

EPISODE:
037

State of the Global Talent Race with David Cantor

In this episode, host James Pittman speaks with David Cantor, Director of Partnerships at nonprofit BUILD Fellowship, about the state of the global competition for high-skilled talent. They discuss challenges high-skilled immigrants face in the U.S., creative solutions like the BUILD Fellowship's university partnership model, where the global talent race stands, and more.

Key Discussion Points:

  • Challenges for high-skilled immigrants in the U.S., including the H-1B visa lottery and backlogs for green cards
  • How other countries like Canada actively try to attract talent the U.S. misses in visa lotteries
  • Immigration provisions in Biden's AI executive order to streamline visa processes
  • How the BUILD Fellowship helps employers retain talent by using partnerships between universities and nonprofits

Episode Transcript

James Pittman: Welcome to Immigration Uncovered, the docket wise video podcast. I'm James Pittman. Today is episode 37, and we're talking about the state of the global talent race. We're having a discussion with my guest, David Cantor. David, welcome to the program.

David Cantor: Thanks for having me, James.

James Pittman: Yep. David, you are the director of partnerships for the BUILD Fellowship. And I know you have a background as an immigration attorney, and you're very, much involved in Global Mobility. Would you like to introduce yourself? Tell us anything else about your background?

David Cantor: Yeah. Of course. Happy to. My background, I kinda hung up a shingle, getting out of law school, Chinatown, New York. I was falling into anything I could practice. I always had an interest in international law, studied abroad in China, actually carved out a, externship program for credits in Tsinghua University in Beijing, which was super interesting. And I went back to China three times after that. It changed my life. So, I mean, I've always been, even before law school, somewhat of a wanderer, a global citizen, you can say that. And how you bring that into your career path. Well, I guess that's the question I Cantor to, to reflect on. So it's brought me here today. I started off in the private practice, as an immigration lawyer for about 8 years and growing a private practice focusing mainly on US immigration. And that's actually where I was a practicing immigration lawyer, and learned a lot about our complex US immigration, beautiful immigration system. And I've taken it to kind of a comparative lens. And, you know, around COVID, post COVID time, I you know, when everybody had a time to reflect and think, I did the same. I came out and invested and launched a couple of tech companies that were in the global migration space, so not just focusing on the United States. That's actually where I came across DocetWise way back when because I was starting to get into kind of the tech space as well. And yeah, it's been a whirlwind of a career. And most recently I was able to join the BUILD Fellowship, formerly Open Avenues, the Open Avenues Foundation, a nonprofit organization, simply because felt very aligned with with the mission, and bring it full circle back into the United States to focus on providing solutions for, global talent in America.

James Pittman: Yeah. Well, David, as you know, I mean, I'm a huge fan of the BUILD fellowship, and I've, been on webinars with with others, with Danielle, and with others from the the BUILD Fellowship. It's really interesting what you mentioned about, going to China. What year were you in China?

David Cantor: I went back on 3 different occasions, total of about 3 years. I mean, the first was studying abroad there through my university. And it was 2010, I want to say. 2009, 2010, that was the first time I was there. Right after the Olympics in Beijing.

James Pittman: Yeah. I mentioned it because, you you know, when I was when I was a youth, I also was in China, at Jiapong University in Shanghai. And I I think for for those of us who are are global minded, you know, going to China really is a life changing experience. It's really a world unto itself, and it's anyone I've talked to who spent, you know, significant period of time in China has just been really changed by the experience. I don't see how you couldn't be. So I'm always and enjoy, you know, talking to people who who not only, you know, are, like, Global Wanderers, but also, you know, have spent time in China. I just break it strikes, you know, hit it off with them right away due to that shared experience.

David Cantor: Yeah. We can have a whole podcast about that. I promise you. They they can have a whole series about that. And actually, I completely, like my 40 year old mind is kicking in, but I did forget there was, like, a period before I even studied abroad there. That was in my twenties when I just shoestring, and was able to travel the country and learn the language, and get out to Tibetan regions. And it left an impression, and like you said, I mean, it's still a part of my life. Right. Exactly.

James Pittman: I had 3 years of Mandarin, and it stays with you forever, really.

David Cantor: Okay. We should have subtitles. We should we should have this whole conversation in Mandarin and then have English subtitles.

James Pittman: Let's get in a little bit and talk about the the global talent race. So this is a space that you follow closely. So how do you how would you describe the current state of the global talent race?

David Cantor: Yeah. I mean, it's a it's a big conversation to have. Right? And it's I think it's one that it's an ever changing landscape. And it's, I can't say it's like something that I've been involved in for a decade or even half a decade. To be honest, the first time I heard about talent mobility and talent migration was at a conference in the Hague about 4 years ago. So, you know, it kind of was like, what is that? What does that even mean? And so, it's when I say the landscape has evolved, I mean many things. As you would know, the technology simply, to actually offer immigration services across borders. That's something that is changing from day to day. When we met in Chicago in AILA, half of the exhibitions, I mean, I would never have had artificial intelligence and case management systems and obviously docket wise and what Mycase is doing, you guys are are have been on the forefront for a while. So, you know, technology is just one spoke of the wheel as to how service providers, and some governments, are actually using tech to, let's say, create better systems, better immigration frameworks. And what does that mean in a post COVID world where, you know, people have the ability to live and work remotely, and just be more mobile in general because HR organizations are trying to build hybrid teams or distributed teams and are more amenable to that, if not fully remote. You know, in a post COVID world, this I would say, like, this combination of, being able to be more mobile, and influencing new visa categories, even the remote work visa categories that have just caught wildfire, is are signs of, you know, countries who are trying to attract this talent.

James Pittman: At at practically every day, you can see new countries added to the list of those who offer, you know, like, a digital nomad visa. I mean, there's so many countries now that are offering that. Yeah. And besides the digital nomad visa, have you have you seen any any other evolution in the types of visa categories that are out there?

David Cantor: You know, you had the carte de blue, the blue card in Europe, which, you know, I think is is probably the closest thing to having made some progressive changes in terms of being able to work across borders in Europe. Right? And there's several, let's say, Germany, I was just reading today an article about Germany streamlining streamlining the process to make it easier for skilled workers to come to Germany. And so you have governments who are taking and and this is all based in legislation, though. It's not I haven't really seen necessarily new, visa categories kind of pop up at the scale that remote work visas have.

David Cantor: But I've seen the processes get Cantor. The processes change. The processes get more streamlined. And the incentives for attracting workers into their shores, being promoted by governments. Where hopefully we can also think about the United States and where the United States is positioned in this whole conversation, because what are we really doing to attract barn workers, skilled labour workers that stimulate the innovation economy in the United States.

James Pittman: I think that in some ways, the the rise of the digital nomad visa isn't is easy for countries because they don't have to face any political challenges as far as your people thinking that workers are coming in and taking jobs. Like, if the requirement is that you already have a job with a country that's with abroad, and you're just coming in to to stay in the country, then you're, you know, you're not really you know, they don't face that that that political problem. And so the question is is that do you consider that digital nomads? Do you consider that part of a a a global talent? Do you consider that part of a broker model?

David Cantor: It's interesting because you think about, like, what does that mean? Like, in one sense, let's say you have remote workers in, you know, in Spain or, you know, in, in Thailand, but they're working for a US company, right? And they're living abroad. Like is that they're contributing to a US company, right? Maybe it's a tech or software company, but from a policy lens, why are these governments doing that? Because that individual is now, you know, they're, they're maybe they're getting favorable tax income in that country, but ultimately they're spending their money there. Right? They're like, well, you know what? I'm enjoying myself in Thailand. Maybe I'm going to, I'll rent this place. Well, actually I'm earning enough. I can buy a place. And they spend their money locally, which is great. I mean, it's great for the local economy, but then, what I think we tend to not think about in-depth, enough is this is just a bridge. It's just a gateway for permanent residency, right? And that's going to happen. So many times these remote work visas, digital meds, they're just if anything, they're disrupting the global migration space a bit because now somebody doesn't have to get a golden visa in Portugal. Instead, they can just start out with a remote work visa and then get residency and then become a permanent resident and settle down.

James Pittman: Have you seen, I mean, are the regulatory frameworks that you've seen open to that? I mean, are there any examples where, you know, people are restricted once they're on a digital nomad visa? They're restricted from that longer lasting?

David Cantor: Yeah. No. It's mixed. It's definitely mixed. And I think it's so early. To be honest, a lot of these governments are trying to just catch up with themselves because there was such a competition to attract this demographic, at least in the beginning, that even their foreign consulates and embassies, they weren't up to speed. Right? They were just launching this without giving it much thought to the processes behind it. Simply because they, again, they Cantor to be ahead of other governments and compete to attract that demographic. So, you know, I think in the, in the bigger picture, it's like the United States is almost doing like the opposite in many ways. We're, we're just, we're not actually, we're just neutral at best to a certain degree. We make it fairly difficult for those who actually want to remain in the United States when they're at a certain point in their immigration journeys. And, you know, we don't, of course, we don't have a remote work visa or a digital nomad visa. Not saying we should or we shouldn't, we just we just don't. However, I was in Amsterdam, recently for the Rome District Cantor International, it's like the international body of Eyla.

David Cantor: And there was a session about remote work visas that I was super interested in just attending and listening and lot of about a fisherman from Canada who was harvesting, you know, his catch off the coast of U. S. Which was U. S. Jurisdiction. So they're like, is that working? You know, because he actually is Canadian, but he was in U. S. Waters and he actually harvested his catch there. Is he considered working in the United States? Because if he is, you're breaking the immigration regulations. So it would I mean, that to me was mind blowing because it's also reflective of like, Hey guys, do you know that governments like, have you ever been Malta? They're building up technologies to actually, somebody could just submit an application online with a few clicks of a button and end up in Malta in like, I don't know, a month. But we're talking about 1960s case law. So there's something to take away from that because, you know, we're a dense immigration system and we don't make changes overnight. Great. It could have its benefits. Right. And we will thoughtfully approach immigration and legislation changes. But at the same time, if we're talking about how fast pace the global migration space is moving, that you and I know, this landscape that's ever shifting, we risk falling behind. And, I mean, I live abroad. I'm an expat, but I'm still very patriotic. And the reason also why I joined the BUILD Fellowship and the team there and, you know, it's because I do. I love my native country. I love America and I want to see us thrive.

David Cantor: So, you know, there was an interesting Freakonomics podcast, not too long ago after the H-1B lottery. Sorry if I'm getting off course, but just popped into my mind. There were like Cantor, our closest neighbor, like they, the, the prime minister actually, like they call it the H1B scoop, where it's a conscious effort for the Canadian government to offer a visa pathway post the H1B lottery for those who aren't selected. Man, it's like, that's our closest neighbor. And it's, you know, and it works. Like they max out their applications within like, I don't know, those hours or days. I don't remember. But the point is that they they take the talent. They take the innovation away from America. It's not just Canada that's doing it.

James Pittman: No. It's not. And but my sense is that that's actually a significant, selling point for Cantor, is that they, you know, for people who, in one way or another, have had difficulties with the US immigration system, Canada, I think, is always the second choice, and I think Canada, you know, tries to take advantage of that. It's a sort of a natural natural advantage that they have there. But let's talk about let's let's get into some of the specific ways in which, the US economy and and US innovation economy is at risk, of, you know, fall behind in this global climate race? I mean, what what are some of the things that we are doing that are, you know, not in our best interest?

David Cantor: Yeah. I mean, let's think about what what does it mean. Right? What does the innovation economy actually mean, to begin with? I guess we can think of it as this is what's stimulating growth. Right? What's stimulating economic growth, which also influences many other parts of domestic domestic affairs and I guess you could say overall health. Right? You know, the innovation economy itself is in many ways a beating pulse of America. It's founders who are coming with ideas. It's entrepreneurs who are coming with ideas. It's investors who are coming with capital who wish to pursue opportunities in the United States. It's where we've been talking about skilled labor that Cantor are crucial and top talent to US companies that need these highly talented foreign nationals to succeed. These are maybe, I don't know, the CTO of a company or lead engineers. So it's basically everything you could think of that defines innovation and, and growth. America has labour shortages, period. Like we have skilled and unskilled labour shortages in America. But if we focus on, you know, right now in this conversation, just that skilled labour and what's directly stimulating the economy, a big portion of this, James, are, you know, graduate students, international students who are on like an F1 in the United States or an OPT in the United States. And they're already working for a US company to a certain degree. They're already upskilled and trained, or maybe they're leading certain parts of that company. But there's a, you know, a kind of there's there's there's a gap. There's a, an inability for them to stay in the United States post the expiration of that, let's say, CPT or OPT, and they need to find a visa solution. And the H-1B visa is the go to visa in the United States for professionals, Right? For skilled workers. It it has been since, like, the nineties.

David Cantor: And it, it's, it's hasn't changed much. I mean, they've changed the quota, you know, several times along the way. Right? However, there's been no substantial changes to the actual, framework of BH-1B. In fact, when I was in my private practice and H-1B would come up in conversations, I would always stray away from that visa category. Right. I was, I would always stray into other visas and say, well, why don't you get a, you know, form a company in the US and invest $100,000 and launch a business on an E-two treaty visa? So I was always trying to pursue alternative routes for entrepreneurs, investors, founders of companies, which is, you know, it's not ideal for Visa is obviously the pathway, just one of the essential elements to stimulating innovation. Kai, if we can't offer that to foreign nationals.

James Pittman: So, I mean, does the answer lie? Do you think the course of action is to develop more of the, like, the, e two type visas where where, you know, I mean, actually, there are already a lot of countries covered by that or maybe other country specific, you know, visas, where, you know, they're not they don't have to go through the h one b process. But, I mean, like we did with the, e three visa with Australians, do you think, you know, the answer lies there, or do we just need to loosen the h one b regulations and up the cap? I mean, what what do you think?

David Cantor: Yeah. I don't know. It's hard to talk about any, like, legislative change in immigration. Right? Because we've seen the speed at which we move to a certain degree.

David Cantor: Right? Like glacial speed. So I even today I was reading, it's a think tank. They've called the Heartland Visa. It's basically like somewhat of a proposal to be like, okay, let's spot out regional needs for skilled labor and let's have regions in America kind of define that quota. And I thought that was fascinating. I mean, it makes sense. There's actually other countries who are doing something similar, like Japan, as like this immigration framework where provinces, are and it makes sense, like logically they, the province in the south of Japan understands the labour needs more than, you know, maybe a central source does in, in, in, in the capital. So, you know, there, there are all these proposals and thoughts as to how we could improve and there's many ways, James. I just think if we're talking in terms of like why America is at risk to losing the global talent race, any duration that it takes to make some substantial changes will already have been defeated. You know?

James Pittman: Well, besides Canada we talked about Canada a little bit. What other countries do you think are significant competitors in terms of attracting global talent?

David Cantor: Yeah. The EU, I mean, altogether, which is not a country, but, you know, they're connected. And, you know, there are efforts and I guess you can say to making it a bit more seamless to cross borders and work across borders in all of Europe. So I almost consider it as one. But the individual countries in Europe are making a big effort to attract workers and they don't have to try too hard also because, well, there's 2 there's 2 aspects. 1 is, James, you had, like, the typical profile of of an individual who's like, I've tried in America, and now I'm just gonna return to my country. Right? Not even think of it like a third party Cantor. They're just like, I'm gonna take this potential innovation. I'm gonna go back to China. I'm going to go back to India. Because the I've been here in what some have labeled indentured servitude. Right? All those like unable to pursue their their their dreams, unable to pursue that, their their careers, and they have families and risk enough, and they're just fed up. And so they don't even look for, like, 3rd party countries. Right? Not even necessarily CAMM. They just go back to their Cantor. They take their ideas with them, and then they launch companies or they build companies or they find another employer and they do so successfully. So I think that there's that cyclical aspect to migration, which on one end, is great, it's healthy. They're returning back, but they're taking everything they've gained in the United States and then they're returning back and we're losing out on that to our old fault. So that's, that's one of the aspects, dimensions to which we can lose that talent. The other is, as we were discussing, it's just countries making an active effort to, to allure the skilled labour. So Europe has a very, and other parts of Asia have a very attractive, let's say, allure for quality of life, cost of living, right? We're going to package up some tax incentives for you. So you come here and whether it's a skilled labor visa or something else, we're going to offer you repatriate, impatriate tax regimes where you're not going to have to pay much here. So there's a lot of decisions that would go into somebody, you know, actually leaving the United States, but we make it easier for for them.

James Pittman: Well, I mean, are there are there any others? I mean, besides tax incentives and a streamlined visa process, do you know of any other strategies that you know, where countries are have an advantage really in attracting skilled labor?

David Cantor: It's interesting. I it's more of a it's somewhat of an anomaly, but I would say it's gonna we we will start to see this trend a bit more. Countries are recognizing certain labor shortages and skilled labor shortages on a larger scale. Right? And an example, this is not necessarily skilled labor, but Germany, when they were hosting I forget what exactly what they were hosting. But there was a shortage in the airline industry. So at one point they're like, we're just going to open up our entire infrastructure, immigration infrastructure to bring in talent who can help fill these deficits in the airline aviation sector. And they did that. So they're like focusing on these specific subsets of labour and creating a stream well, it's streamlined, but not streamlined in the sense of technology, it's streamlined in the sense of policy to fill those labour gaps. The same was done like it for the women's, World Cup, I think in Dubai, right, to bring in workers for that as well. So I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see some of these shifts, like in countries that are saying, well, there's a certain class of labour that we need. Software engineers. Let's open up that pool to software engineers and streamline that process. But, yeah, I haven't seen anything, like, necessary, like, specific, surface, right, to my knowledge.

James Pittman: The thing is the United States does have, you know, some I mean, it seems like we have the machinery in place to do some of these things. I mean, we have, you know, the the seasonal worker visa, the h two, b seasonal workers, and we have, you know, the, TN visa. We, you know, we we have, so many different categories. I mean, I'm wondering, what is it specifically about the US immigration system that that where is the gap between the the visas that we have and, you know, utilizing them to the max in order to attract, you know, the talent that we need to be as competitive as possible? Like, where's the mismatch really playing out?

David Cantor: Yeah. And I and I that that's such a great question and I wish that there were even more people in this room or more people even having this conversation. Right? Because the I think the decision makers are those who talk about, you know, or who can influence this change from high levels, the rhetoric is completely misaligned. Like, this is exactly what we should be talking about, James.

David Cantor: We should be talking the immigration rhetoric should revolve around this. And so hopefully we can see more of that in the near in the near future, but, you know, we do. We have an alphabet soup of visa categories, right? We have such a complex immigration system, so sophisticated, that there's ways to make it work, right? Maybe even without big sweeping legislative change. But where's, you know, where are the weaknesses? Right? Where are we losing that innovation? Where are we losing this global talent? Because this is not just theory. It's actually happening. One of the places where we just addressed, it's international graduates who are in the United States already, who have graduate degrees or bachelor degrees, maybe they even have an employment offer, or maybe they're already working. But what do they what do they resort to, right? We have an O1 visa, but they're not they're not yet qualified for an o one because they don't have the extraordinary extraordinary ability yet. They enter the lottery. I mean, that's why we have half a 1000000 people who have entered the H-1B lottery. They're not founders who are going to start a company. They're just skilled workers that companies need to hire and retain. So I think we can really get to the heart of this discussion by thinking about US employers, HR decision makers, right, who are the ones struggling with this. Right? And that that would be an interesting third person to add to this room, somebody from the inside who's like, we either run a small, medium, or massive company in the United States. Yes. We employ or need to employ, foreign national talent, but we can. Right? And that's not an uncommon conversation to have. And the scale at which it's happening in the United States is staggering. Right? That's why you have Mob Squad who made their business on HR decision makers who are like, well, you know what? We'll just set up a company with you guys in Cantor. Similar time zones. We'll send our our chief engineer over there or a senior sub engineer over there, because, yeah, he can't remain in the United States. We don't have a visa for him until we figure out another solution. Solution. But I think if we look at it, it lens from, you know, what would visas that US employers need in order to arm themselves to retain and hire this talent?

James Pittman: That's a that's a good it's it's a good angle to take to try and analyze this problem because that's that's what keeps coming to my mind is that we've got so many different nonimmigrant visas and so many different immigrant categories. And, you know, you would think that we would have all the bases covered. So I think one interesting angle for research is looking at the life cycle of these desirable, you know, skilled immigrants and looking at, you know, where where does it break down? And you've pointed out a very important point is Cantor graduation is to transition from, you know, being on a student visa to being on an employment visa where, you know, there's a lot of breakdown there. That's where a lot of attrition takes place. So where does this attrition take place? I think that's a really important angle for study, you know, with the the h one b quotas. I mean, you know, it would seem to me that the STEM OPT has been of an important and successful step. So where we maximize? Where can we minimize attrition? Where can we, you know, maximize your attention? And beyond that, you know, where can we adapt our existing categories and maybe streamline the policies of our existing categories, in order to harness as much as, you know, as much talent as in order to, let's say, harvest as much talent as we can also harness. But do you have any thoughts on Biden's AI themed executive orders and whether those are an important step in the right direction?

David Cantor: Wow. Can you fill me in on on like, give me a synopsis of that?

James Pittman: It's called, the executive order on safe, secure, and trustworthy artificial intelligence. And there are some immigration, provision immigration related provisions of it. And, you know, basically, it recognizes the significant role of immigrants and international students and, you know, high skilled temporary visa holders for the development of AI technologies. And so one of the provisions there is that within 90 days of the order, the secretaries of state and homeland Authority shall take it says, you know, shall take appropriate steps to streamline the processing times of visa petitions and applications, including by ensuring timely availability of visa appointments for noncitizens who seek to travel to the US to work on study or conduct research in AI or other critical and emerging technologies. And it's also asked the state department to consider adding j one research scholars and f one students in STEM fields to the upcoming domestic visa renewal program, so visa renewals without leaving the US, and also initiate rulemaking to establish new criteria to designate countries and skills on the exchange visitor skills list for the j visas re as they relate to the 2 year foreign residence requirement, for certain j one nonimmigrant visas. So not forcing people to go back to their country of origin for the 2 years after holding a j one before they're eligible to get, you know, a green card or other status. So, I mean, those it seems like it's a good start, a start in the right direction. Any any thoughts on those?

David Cantor: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting how they say in other critical and emerging technologies. Right? So it seems like that would cast a bit of a wider net and at least it's acknowledging this critical need. And so it's a good start.

David Cantor: It's something that heads in the right direction. And it also seems to be an initiative where it's keeping these individuals in the United States because the other big immigration news, which is which is nice to see happen, is that individuals don't have to necessarily go to through the state department, right, to get visas and come back, which can be a challenging bottleneck in many different ways, depending on where or what consulate that foreign national has to go through to get a visa. So these are all steps. I think this executive order is a step in the right direction for at least acknowledging this. I think it's also a scare. It's like, okay, we've realized that people are going back to China and they're launching and they're beating us in the artificial intelligence rates. Right. And this extends into all the other areas, you know, to kind of J1, which really gets into the core of many ways of like scientific studies and, you know, that that no doubt is important. And the STEM the STEM fields are no doubt important to the innovation economy. So all this is interconnected.

James Pittman: Yeah. I mean, one of the the other provisions is they're gonna expand the occupations list on schedule a for the perm and and or rather for the EB 1 and EB 2 categories. So expanding the occupations list on schedule a and the directive 1, first preference, so e b one and e b 2, or other aspects of the order. So it's you know, I'm just quoting from the order. So it asked the DHS to clarify and modernize immigration pathways for experts in AI and other critical emerging technologies, including on the l one a category and e b one citizens of noncitizen, sorry, of extraordinary ability, e b 2 advanced degree holders, and, noncitizens of exceptional ability, and the start up founders in AI and other critical and emerging technologies using the international entrepreneur.

David Cantor: Yeah. I mean, and in practice as well, I guess my question would be, you know, one of the the other if we're looking at, like, where are the weaknesses immigration journey? We we adjust 1, which is, you know, right after graduation and the ability for companies to even Cantor to hire, retain that talent. The other, which we've kind of, you've kind of just alluded to here, is later on down that journey, where, okay, that individual has been in the United States, living here, working here, that transition into being a permanent resident, right? Actually getting a green card. So, if the order is going to, I don't know, speed up that process, namely for those who do have extensive waiting periods to receive a green card from India, right, from China. I don't know if the executive order would influence that in practice, because obviously that's one of the most, I guess, challenging aspects to individuals wanting to stay in the United States if they can't even receive permanent residence. They're almost in that holding pattern that, is detrimental. That's another really, really, big problem point, is segueing between

James Pittman: nonimmigrant status and immigrant status with the preference categories, especially for the preference categories where you need labor certification. That's really a lot of people's a lot of people's journeys get derailed at that point as well. So it seems like those are the 2. From what I've seen, those are the 2 biggest, sticking points in the whole process is going from student to work visa and going from work visa to permanent resident, relating to, you know, relating to visa availability and and and, both, you know, h one b visa availability and relating to, you know, immigrant visa number availability when you're talking about going to permanent resident status. And streamlining streamlining the consular process or allowing them to bypass the consular process, I think, is huge because that's another that's another, problem area is you have people who, are on status and, for whatever reason, need to temporarily leave the country. But if they're you know, they could be in status in the US and have a long time left. But if their visa has expired in the meantime, the minute they set foot outside, they're forced to you know, through that process of scheduling an appointment at the consulate or embassy, which, you know, that is that is a a a place where you can run into, delays, and you can run into difficulties with, you know, getting visa renewal and coming back one time to resume work. So there's another you know, that's another, place where, you know, I think this executive order will help if they can bypass that process altogether.

David Cantor: Yeah. And they just they just piloted it. So it's, you know, it's it's somewhat early stage. So it'd be interesting to see how they start to, I guess, scale this out a bit more, what areas they seek to apply it to.

James Pittman: It's a good start is what I think of it, and, you know, really hope that the administration can follow through with with more similar initiatives. Let's talk about how the BUILD fellowship overcomes, you know, overcomes this problem. So you actually you know, you have a partnership between sort of private employers and who are cap subject and entities that are cap exempt.

David Cantor: Yeah. Of course. We've kind of used the ingredients of legislation, and the federal regulation, to perfect to a certain degree this Cantor exempt model. Right? So working within the confines of the legislation, which is many ways we've kind of been exploring in this call today is how can we either use what we have or how can we improve it? Right? Those are 2 different prongs to this conversation. So the BUILD Fellowship, has roots going back to Open Avenue's Foundation, as you know, and even further back in Massachusetts and Cambridge where there were efforts and still are efforts to launch kind of the global entrepreneur in residence programs. Right? And those exist throughout the United States. They're basically incubators within universities for founders, foreign founders to launch companies, almost like America's startup visa. So we have roots going back to that. But the BUILD Fellowship essentially combines, well, we build out a network of nonprofit and university partners in the United States. And this is one of the, you know, one of the clauses in the immigration legislation that makes us essentially a cap exempt organization, the relationship between universities and the nonprofits. So we've put together a whole network there. And the way that we work with employers or private entities who wish to retain foreign talent and or hire foreign talent, through this through this actual model, they would file a concurrent H-1B. But that's getting ahead of ourselves. The first step in the process is to actually file the Cantor exempt H-1B application, which the BUILD Fellowship does. And we do so on a rolling basis. A capped exempt organization is not subject to the lottery. There's no limits or quotas on an annual basis. So you can submit applications on a rolling basis throughout the year, not subject to the cap. Right? Cantor that. So by virtue of us having these partnerships with universities and nonprofits, we've essentially the heart of the fellowship program, we've built out an education hub where skilled workers, skilled individuals are coming into the fellowship program and working we're sponsoring them part time to provide practical training within their area of expertise to university students throughout the United States through our university partners. So if you're an aerospace engineer, we help you create what we call build project, which is basically like an 8 week workshop that's very nuanced, and offer that to the student body. And career services, they love it. They promote it to their university students. It's practical training. And that's, you know, that's our model. And it's I wanna say industry agnostic, Right? Because if you qualify for an H1B visa, you fall into one of the specialty area occupations, then in theory, you would qualify for the fellowship programme, right, so long as you have a bachelor degree. Then just to round it off, the the employer, the US employer, who ultimately wants to hire this talent after the approval of the Cantor exempt petition, they would file what's called the concurrent H1B application, which permits that individual to also work simultaneously concurrently full time, for that US employer. So yeah, we've used the ingredients within the legislation to kind of bake out this model, and and we're supporting, you know, fellows throughout the United States and, you know, several 100 companies.

James Pittman: Yeah. I mean, that's really that's that's really ingenious, because you've you've got a way to work entirely within the statutory and regulatory framework and yet achieve something which without the partnership, people can't achieve. So, you know, I I mean, it's really it's an it's a good example of creative thinking, in an environment in which, you know, legislative changes really are to to come by. So what's on the horizon for the BUILD fellowship? It's really just continuing to continuing to build out this model and replicate it around the Cantor? Or

David Cantor: I would, yeah. I mean, that's our aim. Right? And it's, you know, it's not easy to explain. Right? And it's not easy to operate either. It's a, it's a very heavy machine. We have a whole team dedicated to education. Right. And with that education is the heart of the fellowship program. And in many ways that speaks to compliance, because we are, we're fighting upstream, in many ways because not only are we fighting against a very robust immigration framework, and I say fighting because for a USCIS officer or a consular officer to see a Cantor exempt petition of this nature, it's not common. Right? It's, it's, it's not like there are thousands of these applications being filed per year yet. Immigration lawyers don't really know about this option. Maybe they've heard of kept exempt, but maybe they, you know, haven't heard of the BUILD fellowship or the model itself. And then if immigration lawyers, okay, maybe they've heard of it. Now how do they explain that to the client? So, you know, there's a lot of, you know, moving parts to actually not just educating about this immigration solution, but also having somebody being convinced to take the next steps and trust that it's a fully compliant solution that will work for them. So of course we have an amazing team. We have an amazing leadership team. Again, we have roots, and I think that adds and lends itself to the vision and kind of determination of this mission statement, which ties into our conversation today, which is really empowering foreign talent, global talent to to live and work in America specifically. And and which is another reason why I'm just very passionate, fortunate to be part of this team, to kind of have a a bit of a global perspective on what's happening out there. I can't say I'm a pundit, you know, but I can say I know enough comparatively about, what's happening in the global migration space and global ability ecosystem that it's not going to wait for us. It's not going to wait for our legislation to change. And the more, the deeper I kind of go down and hear these stories from the individuals who are being impacted, and not just the employers of the companies, but the individuals, the more I guess it it just reinforces that there's a need to do this and to do it right.

James Pittman: Absolutely. I mean and let's I wanna get to your novel. So you you wrote a novel called I Am Q. I mean, what's what's the novel about, first of all, and what was your aim in writing it as far as influencing the public's perception of technology?

David Cantor: Oh, wow. Thanks for asking that question, James. You done your due diligence. Because I think I've I think yeah. I've I've sold a total of a couple dozen copies. No. I I really have no idea, but it's it was a it's it was a passion project, like like many of my, you know, my efforts in life. And I had time to, to reflect and think about these things. I have 2 young kids, you know, who are being brought up into this new world and technology, I consider myself part of the bridge generation where I grew up in a world before the internet. I grew up in a world before the world wide web. Right? I was kind of born into this, like, evolution that is technology and has moved so fast. And so the the novel itself is just about the connection we have between people, the human connection, and how technology has influenced that over time. So I kind of juxtapose some of these big themes, what's real in life, what's like fleshy real versus what's, you know, what's, what's, what's not. And blend this together in a novel. It's a, it's a, it's a fiction. And yeah, I encourage anyone who's looking for a good July 4th read, you know, or maybe a summer read to sit down. There's definitely, you know, a thread of satire that that goes through the the the entire novel itself. But, yeah, it it's, I mean, it's about a, you know, kind of washed up comedian who, you know, just kinda gets by in life and gets I don't know if you've ever read the book Ishmael. It's a great novel that was written, you know, in the sixties. I James the book after Ishmael, that was written by Daniel Quinn in like the sixties seventies. He was a very prolific writer. He wrote a lot about consumerism and industrialism and just things of its time, but he condensed it, all of his essays into a slim book, where, it was this main character who was talking to a gorilla about these issues. And the whole book is about that conversation. So I had written essays about technology. I'd written essays about the influence of technology and, you know, very like factual almost as to like, oh, we started with the modem and then now we're here, like in the, sort of dial up phase, and now we're here with wireless and so forth. So I went through this evolution of technology from a very factual lens and never found a framework to put it in until I read this book which inspired having a main character who speaks to Q, who is the other main character, in in this book. And and and, yeah, it's, it was a fun departure. It has nothing to do with immigration.

James Pittman: Okay. No. But sounds sounds interesting. But, I mean, a lot of our listeners are very interested in in tech as well. Are are you a Kara Swisher fan?

David Cantor: I I don't know much about Kara Swisher. Should I?

James Pittman: She's a journalist for what? She's a journalist for Wired Magazine. She went for a lot of major publications, but she started out with Wired Magazine. But, yeah, she's Yeah. Yeah. A preeminent tech journalist. Definitely always, you know, good for a list. And, I mean, what you were talking about just reminded me of, of Kyle Swisher. So yeah. So if you're not if you're not

David Cantor: We'll check it out.

James Pittman: We'll check it out.

David Cantor: Definitely check it out. Yeah.

James Pittman: Where do I think we'll be in in 10 years in terms of global global talent mobility? I mean yep. What's your what would your if you had a crystal ball, what where do you think we'll be? I mean, is it gonna is that is is digital nomad gonna be just super, super common? Or I mean and outside of AI, and outside of remote working for tech companies, I mean, are there other areas of the broader space of technology, like environmental technology, that you see also, you know, getting into, you know, this, you know, getting into this competition for talent.

David Cantor: Yeah. And I I don't think it's, like, specifically, like, AI tech or I mean, you know, it's anything that has impact. Right? And that that includes environmental technologies. Right? Hopefully there's more of that. Right? Or we hope there's more of that meaningful innovation. In terms of migration and mobility, also something that I would love to even speak about at some point is, you know, what does it mean to have sustainable immigration? Right? What does that mean? Because quite often we don't have the bandwidth to think about what the impact of immigration is. Right? On communities, on cultures. So, you know, that that's also a really interesting departure, but worthwhile, in conversation. So if I had a crystal ball and I think immigration lawyers maybe cover their years, it's like it's moving so fast, where I can see there being, a lot of this immigration lawyers and the services we're providing have to they have to evolve. Because I don't think it's going to be form filling. Right? It's, you know, maybe petition letter writing is going to be the heart of lawyering to a certain degree. But there are major companies that are not law firms that are tech companies that are coming into the global mobility space. Because when you say global mobility, it does it. It involves distributed work. It involves it's a big B2B space. It's the B2B Cantor, right? It's not your traditional, like, immigration that is dealing with legislation or court appeals, right, serious immigration. And that's going to always be. And I think that's going to be extremely meaningful in terms of service and immigration work and representing those who, who are seriously in need of these nuanced immigration services, complex cases. But a big bulk of business immigration practices probably aren't going to need immigration lawyers. Like they're going to be resolved by these big players that are entering the market, that maybe first started as like Employers of Record, right, if you ever heard that buzzword. And now we're pivoting into the migration space with or without lawyers. Right? They're tech companies that are providing legal services, and they're not law firms. Maybe they've used lawyers to build their systems. I know I did that in one of my previous startups, right? Where you're building out the processes, based on that knowledge transfer, but then you have the processes. It's a system that does the rest. So I do think a lot of like the B2B play, the global mobility space, which is very much a B2B Cantor, business oriented sector, that deals with distributed work and HR and movement of people across borders within companies, in 10 years from now, you're not gonna need a lawyer. Lawyers will hardly be part of that process because we're just a cost. So there's still the other wide world of immigration that's available for us. And, yeah, that's more of the the individual based services.

James Pittman: It's gonna be fascinating, and, you know, we'll we'll have further discussions. But it's fascinating to watch it evolve as to, you know, how the interplay between the AI, you know, use of AI in the law practice, and also, use of e filing and streamlining some of the procedures on the part of governments, how it's all gonna come together. Definitely, it seems clear that the lawyer's time is gonna be spent doing things that require lawyers to do and not doing things that can be automated. I mean, once things are automated, that's, you know, that that's that's done. Lawyers are not gonna need to do, and they're not even really gonna need power equals to do them either. It's just gonna be largely automated. So that leaves, you know, other things too that leaves other things too, you know, for lawyers to do. But, between that aspect of it and, you know, the aspect of it in in terms of the, sustainability, I mean, that's another it's another important conversation. We've we've talked a lot about the politics of the, you know, the legal processes and and visa quotas and things like that that are involved in mobility and immigration. But, you know, what what is what does sustainable immigration look like, you know, globally? I mean, if we have more and more global mobility, what are the collateral consequences of that movement of people, both positive and negative? I mean, we talked about, you know, countries wanting to attract digital digital migrants because on the one hand, they're not taking a job from locals. On the other hand, they're spending their money in country. From that from that perspective, it's a win win. But what are what are some of the other collateral consequences?

James Pittman: So, you know, that's that's important, and it'd be it'd be interesting to to have further discussions and look about how, you know, these collateral consequences are playing out in different parts of the world, you know, con where I mean, I don't know that a country like, let's say, Bhutan, you know, which really has a lot of its public policy focused around maintaining the environment in just such a way, you know, I don't know that they're ever gonna be welcoming in a, you know, a ton of digital nomads. So some something like that's an extra I'm just using that's an extreme

David Cantor: request. No. No. It's not necessarily because it doesn't mean a bunch of remote workers and digital ads won't try to make it to to baton. Right? If anything, they're they're they're on their way right now. So

James Pittman: And, you know, that it's it's it's interesting because I think that sustainability I mean, there's even a lot of, you know, talk these days about, like, sustainability with tourism, especially even in even in place if you're very heavily tourist, it's like like, why? You know, there's a talk about, you know, long term needing less tourism overall in order to maintain the environment and not have just a, you know, a serious and potentially catastrophic degradation of the environment, I mean, depending on, you know, what the predictions are. But immigration as well, you know, what does sustainable migration look like? What are the consequences? So it's, you know, it's it's gonna be very interesting to see how that plays out in tandem with increased mobility, you know, from remote working and increased mobility from technology.

David Cantor: Yeah. I would love to listen to you have that conversation as well with others because it's something that it James bandwidth to think about. And you know, today there was an immigration lawyer from New Zealand who posted something that I loved. And he basically, similar to what you were mentioning about Hawaii, was like, here are our main tourist attractions and we need to stop this. You know, the best times was actually during David, right? Because every single hiking trail now is overrun. And you think that there's enough space in this world. And I think that there is. So it's a matter of how we use the space and immigration is definitely one of the mechanisms that influences the movement.

James Pittman: Yeah. I mean, even places in Italy now, for example, are having a, like, a a day to day tourist fee for each day that you wanna visit simply to to try to, mitigate, you know, all these ex these externalities, these these costs of having all of the visitors. So, so that's tourism. And then, you know, in terms of immigration, it you know, we'll have to it's it's fodder for it's fodder for many, many discussions.

David Cantor: Yeah. Portugal is the first place I think you should speak to somebody who's been on the ground there because you can get a good sense. Portugal did a wonderful job at promoting themselves as a destination and too good of a job. So you can get a sense as to what migration has done there.

James Pittman: Okay. Yeah. That's that's definitely good good to good to use as a case study. So, David, it's, it's been fascinating. Are there any other projects you have on the horizon that you wanna tell us about before we walk?

David Cantor: Yeah. And, I mean, just diving deep as I can with the BUILD Fellowship right now. And we are looking to scale. I'm speaking with a lot of HR decision makers trying to educate lawyers. So I guess I'm just thankful to be on this podcast, and cross paths with you again, here. I always welcome a conversation, but I'm, I'm, I'm all in, on this path and I always have my writing. I'm sure I'll publish things every now and then, because you can't hold passion down. So

James Pittman: Alright. Great to hear. Well, I mean, David, again, you know, much props to the work you're doing, with the Bill Powers Day. Wanna try to check out your novel as well. But I've enjoyed you and have enjoyed the conversation on the state of the global talent, state of the talent race. And, so join us next time, here on Immigration Uncovered, and thanks for listening. Thanks.

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