 Welcome, and aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. Today we're going to cross the sea to New York City to talk with attorney Tammy Lee, a managing partner of the New York law firm of Goldstein and Lee. Tammy's law practice focuses on immigration into the United States. She helps her clients cross the sea to live and work in the United States. Aloha, Tammy. It's good to see you. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you. Nice to see you, and thanks for inviting me. Well, it's a good way to get together in these strange days, and I do want to get into asking you a bunch of questions about immigration. Even during these politically divisive and COVID pandemic times, immigration in the United States is a topic of great interest, and I found that out amongst some of my lawyer friends who have international clients. I want to thank attorneys Alan Fujimoto, Ben Lau, Larry Foster, and Shimpei Oki for sending me many excellent questions when I told them that I'd be talking with you today. Let's get started. Okay, sounds great. All right, so many of the questions that I got from my brain trust involve political climate in the United States, and over the past few years, and how that has affected immigration law into the United States. So for example, what changes have you observed in the past five or six years with respect to your practice, and specifically pre, during, and post the Trump administration? Well, I think politics has always been part of immigration. I think ever since immigration was a factor, it's been part of immigration and US immigration in particular. During the past five years, there's been a lot of changes, I would say. I think Obama has always been viewed as pro-immigrant, and I believe he did a lot of good. He implemented DACA during that time. So all these children, or all these individuals who came in illegally or came in when there were children and became illegal, were able to obtain some kind of status in the US. But during the Obama era, there were also a lot of individuals who were deported, more than Bush's administration. And then Trump came in. And with Trump, I think the rhetoric there was he was pro-American, and people interpreted that as being anti-formers. So a lot of his programs that he implemented, which were a lot, were restricted, I would say. He definitely had Muslim bands in terms of certain Muslim country people coming into the US. He, of course, tried to get rid of DACA. He implemented various rules to make it harder for certain people to get visa, like the H-1B visa. There were more restrictions placed, and making it, I guess, more difficult even for immigration when they're adjudicating a case, making it a higher standard. And also he, I think, limited budgets for the various agencies where their budgets were not increased or where there were delays, so they're just delayed all around. So yeah, during the Trump administration, a lot happened. The current administration, although they have a lot of plans, they haven't really been able to implement much at this point, because they're trying to undo a lot of the Trump administration acts. And that's going to take a while. I believe they said it could take up to a year to do that. You haven't seen a big change with respect to immigration just because there's kind of a cleanup going on? Is that right? I would say that. Yeah, they're trying to undo some of the bills that were proposed or some of the proclamations that were implemented. Yeah, those are taking a little bit of time, and some of them have to go to the agencies also, so those are taking time as well. And the number of visas was reduced under Trump, as I understand it, and as my brain trust has advised me. And you see Biden changing that? Is there anything ongoing to make it easier to get a visa besides trying to go backward, if you will? Well, I think during the Trump administration, there were a lot of reports saying that there were a lot of Americans who were not able to get jobs because of foreigners. But some of the research that was used to make those arguments were actually false or misleading because there was a shortage of certain, at least certain areas. And so I think the Biden administration is going to be listening to the different industries to see where, if anything, could be increased or not. But to be honest, it's very difficult to make any changes when it comes to visas because Congress has to get involved. And there's always a struggle there right now, even though the Democrats are there, there's a lot of resistance still, right? Again, politics coming into play. So even with the change of administration, what I hear you saying is that there's still the political diversity that is preventing more immigration into the United States. That's this. I think so. I think there's a lot of challenges. And you talked about the America First policy in Europe, I mean, which was, I think Trump was behind that and it comes historical policy, I think. And that reduced business visas, is that correct? Is that what happened? Well, the way it played out is, as an example, if an individual went to an interview and they were being interviewed for a particular visa and based on the just the regulations, they qualify, you would have an officer ask questions like, you know, can't an American do this job? Right. And that could be a challenging question because before that was not necessarily the standard. So an officer had a little bit more leeway in trying to, I guess, adjudicate a case. That was definitely a challenge. You found this in your own practice. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Now this question has disappeared. They're not asking that question. Although I still, when I still prep clients, I do, you know, tell them that it's that, you know, that definitely was a question during the Trump administration. So it is a question that they should be able to answer. But yes. Do you feel then that going forward, there's a more um open or friendly attitude towards immigrants and business visas? Is that is that is that a correct assumption to make or not within the administration? Yeah, I think. OK, so one of the one of the changes that we saw during the Trump administration was as an example is the H1B visa when you filed an extension before the immigration service kind of gave deference to the prior approval of a visa. And when they reviewed an extension, they could make their decision based on perhaps a prior petition as well as a new documentation that was submitted for extension. During the Trump administration, they pretty much got rid of that. And so you have to prove again to the satisfaction of immigration that this individual qualified for the H1B visa, even if immigration in the prior petition or the, you know, the original state period of stay was approved. So yeah, there's a change in attitude, I would say. Like I said, there are undoing the Trump administration's walls, but it's a long term project. And you have to advise your clients of that, I guess. And that's you tell them and you tell that you I mean, you give them advice and the best way to talk with the immigration officials. And it's still it's an ongoing project is what I hear. Yes, definitely. Okay, all right. So next COVID, okay, a lot of questions about COVID. How has COVID affected business immigration into the United States? And you know, one of my trusted folks that gave me some questions said when the COVID hit, visa issuance basically stopped at embassies overseas. Now, this is a lawyer that deals a lot with international clients. Have things recovered with respect to that? Are the embassies overseas now able to help people with issue with the visa, the practical standpoint, because of COVID? It's not business as usual. And they are adjudicating some visas, but the majority of the consulates are, I believe there was report that said in August, at least 65% of the consulates for more embassies were either closed or partially opened. In July, I believe it was 75%. So they are opening, but very in limited ways. Also, many of these consular posts, they don't even have appointments available for, I mean, I think, as an example, in Brazil, which is under, which is one of the countries that are on the travel restricted list, the earliest appointment will be maybe May, June 2022. Now, you can make a request for an expedite, but you have to meet certain standards. So that's something you help your clients with to is that? Yeah, absolutely. And it's not and it doesn't work for everybody because it really depends on the individual's role at the company and what they're doing, you know, what kind of business it is and such. So yeah, so visas are being issued, but in limited numbers. Some consular posts are better than others. I would say probably Japan is actually one of the better posts. They are, you can get appointments relatively quickly. I'm being cautious. In terms of compared to some of the other consular posts, Japan is actually working pretty well. And over the over the year, over last year, there were a lot of changing rules in a COVID situation. Initially, you know, certain types of visas couldn't get visas. Or if you could, you had to meet certain requirements. I mean, the COVID situation has changed the rules constantly. And it's still evolving. And but at the rate that they're going, we're not quite sure when the consulates are going to be fully operational. I think they're definitely several months away from that. Definitely. And that's just because of COVID. So we got politics and COVID both slowing the process of immigration, business immigration too, I guess, all types of immigration. And so, you know, people want the situation to change, people want things to get better, but it's still slow all over for both of those reasons. And what do you tell your clients? I mean, what is your general advice? Yeah, so it's very difficult to advise clients because we don't have a crystal ball, we can't tell them, you know, when things are going to be better, we can't tell them when the travel restrictions are going to be lifted. So we just have to work with what we have. When they have an individual that they want to bring into the US, you know, we do the normal assessment, and then give them real the reality of the situation that, you know, this individual might be able to come in in a few weeks or months, but it's also possible that they might not be able to come until next year. And, yeah, we're exploring all these options. We're exploring different consular posts to see if they would accept, you know, a third country national just because, you know, one consular post might have more appointments available. And that's something that, sorry, practitioners do normally because, you know, some consular officers might consider that what they call, you know, consular shopping, which is not the case. We're not trying to do that. We're just trying to get a visa for someone and some posts are just closed. So it's difficult. And you're finding that within your own practice, over the five or six years, all of these things have slowed up, slowed up the process. Well, right. I mean, the more recent changes was the appointment system. It's really because of COVID. During the Trump administration, I would say there was definitely to a certain extent some shift in terms of people coming into the US to a certain degree. And, you know, we definitely had clients who were constantly bringing people in because of the type of business that they had. But there were also clients, and these might be more than a smaller scale types of business that said, well, you know, maybe we should reconsider doing business in the US because foreign nationals are not welcomed in the US. So they decided to bring their business to maybe Canada or to a different country. So, you know, I think the US did lose some investment during the Trump administration because of the attitude people had of foreign nationals or foreign businesses, which is kind of sad because I think, you know, investment in the US is usually always good, right? Things and more jobs and such. Well, you know, talking about going back to COVID, but I don't know if politics play any part in this too, but have you noticed what types of businesses foreigners are investing in and using immigration to get into the United States? Has COVID or politics affected that at all? Or I guess it has. It sounds like it has. Well, I don't know if COVID necessarily affected that because I think everybody understands that COVID is hitting everybody. I think definitely with the Biden administration coming in, people have been more open about coming back to the US or bringing their business into the US. In terms of the type of business that I'm seeing, interestingly enough, I see a lot of furniture business. Well, furniture? Yeah, which is interesting. Yeah, a lot of furniture business in the US and they're usually high end furniture, but they're coming from Europe and they want to open up shop in the US because, you know, these days you see all these online companies doing their furniture business, not necessarily having a brick and mortar store, maybe one, but, you know, doing their online shopping, online presence, but they're bringing their business in the US. I think that we had like three or four furniture businesses. Okay, and a couple of questions that that might be because everybody's at home. Yeah, that might be COVID related. Yeah, and they're saying, hey, I think I'll fix up my house here a little bit. Exactly. That is interesting. That's kind of a psychological trip. I know. Are there and you say these are European? Are there any other? European really all over European. Well, a lot of furniture come from Europe. So I think we can understand that why I understand for that reason. But a lot of South American type, South Americans are also trying to open up business in the US, too, but usually with a financial related. Okay, any, any other, any, I'm sorry, any other trends besides the furniture, that's really interesting. But anything else that driving clients to leave their home countries? I think always political environment is definitely forcing people to leave their country, right? And South America, various countries in South America has always been tough, right? So you see a lot of people, especially the wealthier individuals coming into the US because they just want to escape what's going on in their respective countries, or, you know, for safety reasons. I think one of the trends that I did see during Trump administration was when some of the visa issues came up, a lot of people coming from certain countries that are, I guess, better established countries, people are going back home. They said, why should we deal with this here? As an example, and I can say this because I'm Korean American, but a lot of the Korean American students who are coming to the US because they wanted to experience even working in the US even for a couple years, they're like just packing up their bag and going back home because of issues with visas. And, you know, even though the economy in Korea sometimes could be a little tough, they thought, well, things are getting better, even in Korea, technology, the economy, so people are going back. And that shows a less of a desire to come to the United States and contribute. And your experience, I mean, generally speaking, these people want to be successful here, right? They want to contribute to the economy and now they're feeling at least at the Trump administration time, they're feeling a little bit of, well, we're not really wanted. I mean, do they still have the American dream? Definitely. Some of the industry that we work with is the financial industry and then within the financial industry, there's a lot of IT involves. As well as other industries, they're IT very heavy. You do see a lot of individuals coming from India or from China. They have the brain power, the IT brain power, the technological brain power that the US is lacking. So you do see a lot of individuals from those two countries coming. And there's a continuous stream, and I think there's a continuous shortage in the US as well. And I know that the US always talks about, you know, and this is Trump too, he talked about this, in order to create more jobs for US, US workers or such, you know, we have to invest in the STEM programs, because we have a shortage of that in the US. Unfortunately, these foreign countries like Korea, China, Japan, India, you know, they are heavily focused on STEM degrees. So, you know, you get a lot of people from those countries. And that could be a big advantage for us if they're here working for us in our economy is what I hear you Yeah. Well, what when when our foreign friends want to come to the United States, what type of visas are they looking for generally? What, what, what type of visas do our foreign friends prefer? Probably the most preferred visa might be the H1B visa, which is a visa for specialty occupations or professionals. And loosely translated means that for the position you normally require a bachelor's degree in a very specific field of study. And but the reason why that visa is desired by most is because once you have it, it's easier to transfer to other employers. So if you come from a particular country like India or China where, as the green card numbers are oversubscribed, if you if you have that H1B visa and an employer sponsors you for a green card at a particular point in time, you could go beyond what is normally that there's usually a time limit on the visa, but you can go beyond that time limit. Okay, so that that is a big advantage if you have that type of a visa I see and you you handle those type of things for your clients. We do. We definitely focus on business immigration. So the various work visas, we do some family cases as well. Because it's something that just happens, you get clients who just happened to get married and you know, they came in as a business client, but then, you know, you're not going to turn down a client who says, I'm getting married, will you help me or like, of course, we have family cases as well. So love conquers all, I guess is the lesson to learn from that. Yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, now, looking forward, do you anticipate any changes in business immigration policies in the next few years? What are the, you know, what are we facing? What does it look like? Well, I think there has been a lot of talk on both sides that, you know, the US immigration practice, US immigration rules have to have there has to change overall gene. But, you know, they've been saying that for years now, and politics is always an issue, competing, you know, interest. So trying to get anything past easy, it seems like an uphill battle. But yeah, I think they are trying to make some changes. But to be honest, I don't know, you know, what will be the final product, if it will happen, if it will happen during this administration. I don't know. I can only hope. I do think that some changes should be made. I think I understand where Americans are coming from when they say, you know, you know, they think some jobs are being taken over by foreign nationals. But it's not the case. In certain situations, perhaps, I think there's in any situation, there could be a little bit of an abuse, right? But in overall, I think most employers, most individuals, they want to comply with the law. And they want to, you know, be able to run their operation with the most qualified individuals. And if you found it, you know, your own clients, have they helped the United States? Absolutely. Oh, yeah. Definitely. And go ahead. Oh, no, no, no, no. I mean, you know, we have clients that are in the financial industry, in the energy industry, communication, social media. Yeah, definitely. Several years ago, it might have been more than 15 years ago, we represented this client who was doing social media. At that point, I didn't know what it was. They were doing a lot of the, you know, Twitter stuff, you know, all those various things that, you know, we were just beginning to learn about. And I was like, God, what, you know, what can this company do? What can they do? You know, what kind of money can they make? Amazingly, they did. And they're huge. Yeah, I see. I see. Well, and, and, you know, what, you know, we've a couple minutes left. You know, what, I appreciate you talking about all these questions I'm throwing at you, all over the place. And it's just dealing with current events. But taking a look at the time you've been a lawyer, and mostly I understand you handle a lot of immigration in your practice for clients. What have you learned about life and law from your immigration law practice? Well, immigration practice is such a personal matter for most of it for all of our clients, to be honest. So whenever I deal with a client, when I speak to them and talk about their issues, you know, I do take I try to understand their perspective, how that would affect them. So whenever I work with a client, I definitely try to emphasize what they're going through, understand what their issues or their concerns are. Because, you know, if I were in their situation, I would want someone to understand and really fight for me. So, yeah, I mean, that's what I try to do in life in general, and try to be the best person that I can be try to treat people the way I want to be treated. So in the same way, that's how, you know, we treat the practice. And I know that sometimes clients can be very difficult. Everybody has that right? Once in a while. But I try to remind everybody, you know, you have to understand where they're coming from, you have to understand their frustration, and, you know, their concern. So, you know, take it easy and just, you know, try to help them and just be a little bit more patient. And you learn what I also I hear you, you're saying you learn a little bit about life and also maybe culture too, is that right? I mean, you're learning about people's cultures and their and they admire the United States too. Yes, definitely, definitely. The American dream is still alive. And, you know, I want to help them in that regard. Okay. Well, look, tell me, I appreciate you being my guest today. It's good to see you. And, you know, I understand that, you know, that we're in a volatile changing immigration law system. And, you know, things will it sounds like things are getting better. And it sounds like there's good things in immigration law, but make you a good person, make you a good lawyer. So thank you for being my guest today. And I look forward to the next time we can actually be together again. Absolutely in person, right? Of course. Hello, everybody.