This is interesting. It is a policy topic at the heart of the election. But do you have a firm understanding of either candidate's position on this, even if the voting base agrees? Well, first, thank you for having me on today. And you're correct that the asylum crisis on the border has certainly dominated the conversation. But behind the curtain, there is a lot of commonality across voters of both parties that high-skilled immigration is beneficial for the United States. And I think Americans understand immigration better than a lot of people give them credit for. They see CEOs, foreign-born CEOs at companies like Google, Uber, Chobani, and they know that they want those individuals investing and creating jobs in the United States. But this election will be the most consequential election for immigration policy, both in terms of that asylum crisis, but also for high-skilled immigration, because the candidates will

implement very different policies, and that will affect how companies hire and attract and build out their talent pipelines. Okay, so I'm an employer. I want to get access to talent. I need to go abroad for it. What can I anticipate? How do I need to align my business hiring with either outcome from the election? Well, let's start with that. So, you know, if President Trump is elected, we all recall back in 2016 that he put travel bans in place, and we are planning for that eventuality. So if he is elected again, we could see travel bans go into effect as early as the first week. They won't necessarily target air specifically, but there could be peripheral damage, so to speak, if they target nationalities, China, for example, or just particular visa categories where that employing a number of high professionals in it. So really, as early as the first week, we could see an impact on their ability to

bring new talent into the United States. But that's only part of the story. I think approximately two-thirds of graduate students in air fields are foreign-born. And what we are expecting is that there will be restrictions on the ability of companies to hire foreign-born talent out of U.S. universities. And that's on top of a broken system that already exists today. It's already very difficult to transition someone from a foreign student to a work visa, but it could get worse if Trump is elected. We're just showing this brilliant chart of the top technology companies are the beneficiaries of H-1B visas, Amazon the most, and Apple, the US. Based on this data from USIS. And you must know what the company's attitudes are towards this. How active are they in this election cycle in impressing the importance of skilled labor to either candidate in either party? Well, all the companies have been operating under a dysfunctional immigration system for as long as

they've been around. And this isn't the first election that they have to prepare for different scenarios. And even within any particular administration, there's very competing views about how to implement immigration policy. So all of them are preparing for both eventualities and putting really the teams and people in place to be able to react. One thing to understand is that if President Trump is elected, a lot of those action plans will get started right away. You know, during the lame duck period of time, there might be a small window to try and get some policies done under a Biden administration during those final few weeks that might be beneficial to those companies. But I think it's best to describe their activity going into this election as preparing for all eventualities. No one, of course, knows for sure how the election is going to play out in a few next week. But the companies are prepared. From a workforce perspective, probably

The most difficult challenge for them is the fact that a lot of their foreign workers like to travel during the holidays, like all of us do, and that could be difficult for them to put in place quickly.

US Election Outcome's Impact on H-1B Visas, Tech Workforce

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