Wayne Baxter
Hello and welcome to the Three Questions podcast, where we dive deep into the world of wealth management and connect you with industry experts. I'm your host, Wayne Baxter, senior executive manager at One Capital Management. Now, if you are someone close to, you are a frequent visitor in states you will not want to miss this week's episode. Why? Well, our topic is the three questions frequent visitors, to the United States should ask before their next visit.

Wayne Baxter
Thank you for taking time to check us out. And if you enjoyed this episode of the Three Questions podcast, please consider liking this video and subscribe to our podcast and YouTube channels. In 2023, approximately 21.2 million trips were made by Canadian visitors to the United States from tourism and visiting loved ones to attending business meetings and conferences. There are clear activities permitted under visitor visas.

Wayne Baxter
However, the line can sometimes be blurred and if you're on the wrong side of that blurred line, you could also find yourself on the wrong side of the law. Today we're joined by Heidi Sonn. Heidi is a immigration attorney and founding partner with Fairfax, Virginia based San Tang Law Group. And today, we're going to discuss the three questions frequent visitors to United States should ask before their next visit.

Wayne Baxter
Heidi, great to see you. Thank you for making time for us today. And, and again, making yourself available for our podcast.

Heidi Son
Thank you for having me.

Wayne Baxter
I appreciate it. I gotta just to give everybody kind of a cue as to how this all came together. Heidi and I met just over a year ago, and she invited me to attend a webinar where she was the guest speaker. And her presentation really kind of raised a few eyebrows, including mine. Suffice to say, that presentation, Heidi, inspired me to invite you to be on the podcast, so I'm glad that we're able to make our schedules work, so that you can have you on with us today.

Wayne Baxter
The last few months, you know, in addition to, us creating our new studio here, we had that going on. Your last a little while has been quite busy as well, because you decided to start a new law firm. So before we get to our three questions and all of that, why don't you just take a couple minutes to tell us about, your law firm and your practice?

Heidi Son
Thank you. So I've been doing immigration for over, I guess, 13 plus years now. And I was a labor employment lawyer for five years at a big law firm. Pretty active in several different, volunteer nonprofit organizations. And one of them is the Asia chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. And, I was on the executive committee there, and I met my two partners there.

Heidi Son
And we really work well together. We have similar visions of what we're looking for, kind of service that we want to provide. And, you know, looking around, there's not a lot of women, all women owned, all minority owned law firms. So we decided to start one on our own. And, the three of us have very, diverse backgrounds.

Heidi Son
And, but we you.

Wayne Baxter
All practice immigration law, is that right?

Heidi Son
We all do business, immigration, employment based immigration, and most of our clients are corporations or individual investors, entrepreneurs, startups. We do occasionally get some orders and performers and musicians, as you can see from my background here. Yes, I painted.

Wayne Baxter
Very artsy. You does that one of your creations?

Heidi Son
Yes. So I was, you know, major before I went to law school. So, so, yeah, so we, we really are proud of the law firm that we have created and it's very busy. And we're, we're excited to, start our law firm with, three very, I guess committed women. Yeah.

Wayne Baxter
Well, I acknowledge the fact that your, your schedule is really challenging, and I was really appreciating getting that. You can, squeeze us in here today. Okay. You know what? Before we get to our three questions, one more thing. We really, you and I should discuss. You know, how the recent election where, you know, Donald J.

Wayne Baxter
Trump became the 47th president of the United States, you know, how is that going to impact us? You know, immigration law going forward? Now, most of the headlines, as I'm sure you're more than aware, have focused on deportations of individuals who entered the United States illegally and have committed violent crimes. You know, for our discussion, though, I really want to focus on employment visas.

Wayne Baxter
You know, having, you know, for yourself, you have you mentioned you've been practicing immigration law for 13 years. Five years is a labor employment law. So you've been really on the front lines on all on both sides immigration and on unemployment law. Now, as I understand it, you know, President Trump has stated that he supports visas for highly skilled workers.

Wayne Baxter
And in particular, he expressed more favorable stance for the H-1b program, stating that it was a great program and acknowledging his use of H-1b visa holders at his properties. So I'm really interested, given how like this is like a now issue, like how do you see this unfolding going forward? Like what's your what's your take on all of this?

Heidi Son
Yeah. So, you know, obviously my clients are also concerned, even though they're not illegal immigrants, they have, legal status here in the United States about how the new restriction, will affect their H-1b or their green card, applications, etc., given what happened eight years ago. Now, I know that, President Trump.

Wayne Baxter
They can give us a bit of a revision history lesson about eight years ago was like for you as an immigration attorney.

Heidi Son
Yes. So while, President Trump has stated positively about the H-1b program and highly skilled workers, etc. at this time around, unlike last time, if we take lessons from what happened eight years ago, because we can only project based on the past, right? The past experience, eight years ago, he was pretty tough. Not just on, illegal immigration, but also legal immigration as well, in particular what they can be program.

Heidi Son
So just to give you a background, the H-1b program, if you make the lottery and then you're selected and you submit the application, it is one of the highest approved, petition. So there's a over like 95% approval rate for each. And B.

Wayne Baxter
If you get if you win the lottery, you get an 8180. When the H-1b lottery it's almost a fait accompli. That you'll be approved is what you're saying right.

Heidi Son
And then if, if what you submit is what the USCIS, the government agency considers for some reason insufficient, the issue was called the request for further evidence because, yes.

Wayne Baxter
I'm familiar with that. By the way.

Heidi Son
We never like getting those. Because it takes more time, more money, and the client's not happy. The lawyers lose money on it, and so.

Wayne Baxter
I can check. I can agree again with all the above.

Heidi Son
Okay. Nobody likes getting lower fees, but, the H-1b program actually has a very low RFP rate. It has a very high approval rate and very low RFP rate. So historically has been maybe 5% our fee rate, and during the prior Trump administration, in the first six months, the RFP rate went from 5% to 60%.

Wayne Baxter
So go on.

Heidi Son
Yeah. So obviously we're very, very busy. Usually our summers are very quiet, but our summers were filled with responding to all these are fees. And unfortunately the denial rate also went up to about 30% or so.

Wayne Baxter
Can they be appealed? Just out of curiosity of those, when there's a denial, is there a way of continuing a path forward or is it.

Heidi Son
Yes. So you can appeal? The only thing is the appeal process takes a really long time, usually a year or more. So generally speaking, we just say to refile is much faster. It is expensive again, because you have to pay all the fees over there. So, I mean, that's one point. And then the other thing is because, of the hiring fees and everything else, we're expecting, longer delays and backlogs and the US embassies, when you're trying to get a visa stamp in your passport.

Heidi Son
So it's not just, how the review process might become more stringent, but also just, a lack of enough, personnel, the.

Wayne Baxter
Time or the time frame for getting anything finished. There's going to be a lot lower because that was a real big issue back. I remember back going through the first, the the first time around was, the frustration and speaking it to other attorneys that I know across the U.S here about, and people clients as well. I remember this one with H-1b, H-1b case, H-1b visa case of a case of clients I was working on.

Wayne Baxter
I mean, it went on, I don't think I think it might have taken ten years by the time they got their green cards.

Heidi Son
Yeah, yeah, the green card process is taking a really long time.

Wayne Baxter
But but I'm just saying I what I'm trying to get at is that the everybody was talking about how everything just took longer.

Heidi Son
Yeah. And we haven't, we haven't fully recovered from, from the backlogs that was created eight years ago. So the fact that we have the administration back and it's going to it's just going to be like a domino effect. Right.

Wayne Baxter
And so so you don't okay. Again, again, as you said, you could only go based on experience. Right. My sense and again, I, I'm not an insider here. So I'm not like I know something that you don't per se, but my, my perspective or right perception is, is that and again this could be because of the influence of Elon Musk, you know, and a few other folks that he's now surrounds himself with is that, you know, it's important for the United States to import talent, you know, skilled workers.

Wayne Baxter
So he's the impression I got, I mean, the impression I have. And again, based on my what I've read and what I've heard is that it's they're going to be more favorable and also for student visas for, foreign students who graduate from a US university. Apparently, he was in favor of somehow giving them a pathway to permanent residency as well.

Wayne Baxter
Again, that's what I've heard. I don't know if you're hearing differently, and I guess time will tell. Is that your take or what do you what's your thoughts?

Heidi Son
Yeah. So of course I've heard the news clips, I've seen the news clips of, you know, President Trump making these promises during his campaign. I will believe it when I see it. I'm skeptical. Well.

Wayne Baxter
All this does is give us a reason to reconvene.

Heidi Son
Right? Right.

Wayne Baxter
We now have a reason to do a follow up podcast. Heidi.

Heidi Son
Yep.

Wayne Baxter
All righty. So why don't we get right to our three questions? Okay. We're going to be discussing the three questions. Frequent visitors to I should ask before their next visit. And I'm going to tell you right now, pay close attention. There's, I think you're going to be in for some eye openers here. So, these questions are from the perspective of the visitors.

Wayne Baxter
So if you're visiting the U.S or planning to visit the U.S in the next little while, pay close attention. Okay. So question number one, what activities are permitted as visitors to the US? I know you put together a list or of, of, of our activities. So I'm interested to see what your, what your list includes.

Heidi Son
And so of course you know tourism if you're coming to visit families and friends, going to Disneyland, Las Vegas, coming for a wedding, all of those parts.

Wayne Baxter
The Orlando. Yeah, the whole deal. Right. Exactly.

Heidi Son
Application type of.

Wayne Baxter
Football games in Buffalo. I'm from Toronto originally, so crossing the border to go to to see the bills get well, hopefully not lose again.

Heidi Son
We were very disappointed when commanders lost to, Yeah.

Wayne Baxter
Yeah. I'm I'm, I'm torn. I'm a big Mahomes fan, but that's another story.

Heidi Son
Yeah. So we're not looking forward to the Superbowl. But there you go. I'm.

Wayne Baxter
Sorry about the Washington Commanders. Yeah, they didn't quite make it.

Heidi Son
Yeah. So those are kind of the tourist tourism activities. And then the other like, business activities that's allowed is business meetings, negotiating contracts, attending conferences, seminars, you know, business meetings as in, like, meetings with potential clients, potential investors, that kind of business meeting where you're not involved in any gainful employment, meaning what you would normally do in your job, you know, at your office, let's say in England or Canada or wherever you are, as long as you're not, engaged in what's called gainful employment activities.

Heidi Son
You can there are certain business activities that you can engage in, such as business meetings.

Wayne Baxter
Okay. Now that leads me. I have a question back on that one. Okay. So I'm at a conference. Maybe I'm in New York. Chicago? And I had before I left, scheduled a zoom meeting. I'm in Toronto, just as a perfect example. Have a zoom call with a a client of mine or a prospective client. Should I reschedule that tour until after I get back to Toronto?

Wayne Baxter
Or is it okay to take that type of a call?

Heidi Son
So what I tell my clients is that, well, usually when they come to me, they've already done something they're not supposed to do. So yeah.

Wayne Baxter
Of course.

Heidi Son
Right.

Wayne Baxter
Sounds familiar.

Heidi Son
Yeah. But so basically I what I call it is the podcast. Right. So if you are physically in the United States, it doesn't matter if you're working for a foreign company in China, Korea, wherever, and that you're getting paid, meaning the money is going from that Chinese company to your Chinese bank account. Right. And you are just visiting in the United States and you're checking emails like, you know, getting on zoom meetings, whatever.

Heidi Son
If that's part of what you would normally do in your course of employment, you're not supposed to be doing that while you're physically in the United States. That said, especially with the, you know, the post-Covid world, ever, a lot of people are virtual now and they engage in a lot of these virtual activities. There is sort of a like an analysis you can do, like what is your primary purpose in coming to the United States?

Heidi Son
Right. If your primary purpose is coming to the U.S to attend a conference and you're spending the vast majority of your time attending that conference and you're that one zoom meeting with the prospective client in Canada is just incidental to your visit to the United States to attend a conference, then it should be fine. Now, if the attend the conference is one week long and you decide you know what, I actually, you know, it's too cold to go back to Toronto, and I want to stay in Florida for another two weeks.

Heidi Son
And I'm going to, for the next two weeks, work in Florida out of my little Airbnb, looking out into the ocean or whatever. And you are actually working, working well those two weeks now, you are violating your B1 visitor status.

Wayne Baxter
Well, let's segue quite nicely into our second question. So I probably I jumped ahead of myself, but I couldn't resist. So because question number two, we can have discussion around this. Question number two is if if I'm attending a team careers, we'll start for the beginning. If I'm attending a team meeting or a team building retreat in the U.S. with my colleagues, am I able to work and again respond to calls, emails, client follow up?

Wayne Baxter
So that's kind of like leading into what you just said.

Heidi Son
Right? So again, if the retreat, let's say you have a retreat in Santa Barbara at this lovely cliff, you know, hotel or whatever, right?

Wayne Baxter
We used to go to the hotel del Coronado, and when I was at, when in Canada, I used to go to the hotel del Coronado hotel in San Diego. Just a gorgeous place. And by the way, if you've never visited a little free advertising for the Hotel Dallas Spectacular, but that's an example.

Heidi Son
Right? So, and let's say the, you know, the the team building is with colleagues in the United States, as well as, you know, from all over the world, let's say you work for a global company that has an office in the US as well as, you know, other places, right, including your Canadian office, let's say. Well, the team building part is fine.

Heidi Son
You are attending this retreat, you're, maybe, doing hypos and, pretending to work on a project together. All of that is fine. And during those five days, if you happen to check emails in the morning and in the evening and you respond to your clients or maybe even get on a call here and there again, that's that is probably incidental to your primary purpose of coming to a retreat.

Heidi Son
So that probably is fine. Now, most of my clients, what they ask me as well, I flew this guy from India all the way from India for a five day retreat. You mean he can't come into my San Francisco office? New York office? Wherever for another month? Because he has a visa for six months? Can't he come into my office for one month and actually really work with the U.S. employees and his colleagues and see how the New York office works and how we, you know, deal with clients, etc..

Heidi Son
I was like, no, you can't. Not on a B-1 visitor visa. You can on, if you get a work visa. Right. And it becomes even more complicated if there is an office in the US, if the company has actual presence in the US and there's a, a US company, it becomes even more gray, right? More iffy.

Heidi Son
You more risky. Yes, I should say interesting.

Wayne Baxter
So here's a question as a follow up, I don't think I'm I'm stepping on the toes of my own questions here. How long? So I think, again, I think most of us would acknowledge and again, I didn't know what everybody but I think most people and this is I'm using my own personal experience here. Okay. So this is the reference point.

Wayne Baxter
So again you know we we talked to a lot of Canadians. Our practice is cross-border with Canada. And you know the question what happens often is when people just you say they're visiting, they're visiting the country for to go to a conference or whatever, like you just said, what how long can someone stay in the US as a quote unquote visitor without getting into the crosshairs of no border services?

Wayne Baxter
Right. What's the what's the general rule of thumb? And I know there's a depending on where you're from will may be different time. I know for Canadians how long would it be. For example, if you're coming from Canada or and you can use examples of other places as well if you'd like.

Heidi Son
Right. So so technically there's a maximum period, right? Yes. There's a maximum period. So for most, country nationals throughout the world, you need a what's called a B visa stamped in your passport. You have to go to the consulate, do an interview, explain why you're going to the United States and get a visa stamp. So like Indian nationals, Chinese nationals, you know, most of most of the countries around this world would have to get a B visa stamp and the visa stamp.

Heidi Son
Also, the period of the visa stamp depends on your nationality, but if you're coming into the USA with the visa stamp, it's usually six months is the maximum period you can stay in the United States. Now there's something called the Visa Waiver Program, which is third countries that have low fraud. Right? No Fi, meaning people don't actually come on a B1 and then overstay or do something they're not supposed to do.

Heidi Son
So like England, a lot of European countries like Japan, Korea there are under the visa waiver program.

Wayne Baxter
And I would know Canada would be as well now.

Heidi Son
Right. Canada is even super exception to that rule.

Wayne Baxter
Oh super. Oh right.

Heidi Son
On. Yeah. You can go. So you so the those country nationals don't have to apply for a visa stamp at the consulate. They can just apply online. What's called Esta, and they can come, and then as long as there's no criminal record or something like that, they get it approved, and then they could come to the United States and their visit can be a maximum of three months now for Canadians.

Heidi Son
You don't need a visa. Some, you know, you just you can come to the border.

Wayne Baxter
You show up at the airport in Toronto, for example. And by the way, in Toronto, you go through U.S. customs, if you knew this, Heidi.

Heidi Son
But in the.

Wayne Baxter
Toronto you go you do the customs in Toronto at the airport. So when you get to the U.S., you don't have to go through customs at all.

Heidi Son
Right. So, so Canadians have a very like a special exception to the rule, right, that nobody else enjoys. Hopefully the the treaty between them. Yeah.

Wayne Baxter
I will say we'll see how things go with the terror.

Heidi Son
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so you you are allowed to stay maximum period of six months, right. Generally speaking. Right. Month if you on a visa waiver program. However if you if so I've had clients where they're Canadian dual citizen usually they come for six months and then they leave to go back to Canada for like a week.

Heidi Son
Then they come back. If they another six months, they leave for another week or two, come back.

Wayne Baxter
And the states, well, they're dual citizens. They're going to be, any crosshairs of the IRS anyway, as one thing.

Heidi Son
You know, not to understand with the U.S., I'm doing it again and some other like.

Wayne Baxter
Okay. Oh, sorry. I thought you meant to use this with the ISO. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead. Carry on.

Heidi Son
Yeah. So when they're doing that eventually they're going to give you order is kind of like they don't scrutinize that much. But when they later want to apply and let's say for a green card or a work visa or whatever it is, right. Investment visa, whatever that periods of stay, these elongated periods in the United States with very short leave from the United States is going to be scrutinized, and you will have a hard time explaining what you were doing here for all that period of time.

Heidi Son
What were you family doing? What were your children doing going on?

Wayne Baxter
How are you financially supporting yourself while you were here? So you just thought of that one myself? Yeah.

Heidi Son
But yeah, I mean, I guess hurry and you can't answer you. Then you're going to be like, you're going to not be able to come back into the United States. Yeah, well, like the people that are not supposed to go to school if you're here as a visitor, for example. Right. So, all of these things, you know.

Wayne Baxter
I'm more than aware is as amazing. I could hijack the conversation just to recount back to our own experience of coming into the country was, we were very careful not to break any of the rules. And one of them was, you know, getting our children into school. And, so because my visa was going to take longer, my wife actually took a, as I like to say, she took a bullet for the family and enrolled in some courses at Santa Monica College so we can get an F1 visa, which allowed us to immediately come into the country and allowed our children to, legally get enrolled in high school.

Wayne Baxter
And so my wife spent a year taking courses in Santa Monica College. She did like a she had a 3.85 GPA. So I was.

Heidi Son
A.

Wayne Baxter
I was suitably impressed while I was, working away at my E-2 visa. So, all right. So very good. Heidi, let's go on to question number one again. Heidi Sun is our guest today. She's a, Fairfax, Virginia based immigration attorney. And, I'm really happy you could make time for us today again. So question number three.

Wayne Baxter
And again, the question we're asking today are the three questions. A frequent visitor should ask before coming to the U.S and question number three is what are the potential risks if I conduct work related activities while visiting the U.S? So the perfect example that you gave was may be coming to that coming into the U.S, going to a conference and deciding, you know what, let's say a couple more weeks.

Wayne Baxter
And during those couple more weeks, yes. Some sightseeing is occurring. But you know more often than not there's a lot of work occurring or even a better example, someone who is you know, decided to get a second place down here in the US and, you know, I don't I've ever been there, but, you know, the months of, say, December through to, March aren't always the most pleasant and north of the border.

Wayne Baxter
So maybe you come down and spend it down south of the border and just set up shop and work virtually from there. So in those examples, what are the risks? What what can happen? And you can you can walk it through the process of how, how this could unfold from just your regular going back and forth, crossing the border.

Wayne Baxter
Yeah. Some way like, how could this go off the rails?

Heidi Son
Right. So, we often have like top executives, for example, from different countries, where they're trying to set up their first subsidiary in the US, and they often come to the US pretty frequently for, let's say, a couple of weeks at a time. But for the last three months or something, they've been coming like repeatedly. Right. So after like the third or fourth visit, they get stopped usually.

Heidi Son
And the, the, the, the, CBP officer at that point will start asking you a lot of questions. Hey, you've been here. This is your fourth time now in the last three months. Like you keep coming back. What's the what's going on? Like what? Why are you here so often now? For the executive. He has a very good excuse.

Heidi Son
He's saying, hey, I work at this big, big company and I'm trying to set up the first subsidiary here. I'm not working with trying to figure out where the office is going to be. You know, looking at different locations. I'm negotiating the lease contracts, etc.. Once we set it up and I need a work visa, I will apply for one.

Heidi Son
But for now, there's no work going on. I'm just doing business meetings. Right. We should be let in. He should be fine. Now, on the other hand, if somebody is a very wealthy individual and they own a home, like you said, in Florida, and every, every year, let's say they end up coming for six months during the cold, cold months, right?

Heidi Son
Like you said. And you did this first time. Second time, third time, probably. Okay. Now the CBP, a smart city officer, if they see a pattern, right, of this frequent like this, recurring visits that happen for a long period of time, every month, every year, consistently, they might take you into the secondary. So the secondary is where they pull you out of the line and put you into a special office.

Heidi Son
Right. And they start grilling you like, like on TV where you, the police officers.

Wayne Baxter
Stop, right? Right.

Heidi Son
Yeah. So, it's not pleasant at all. And they can take your phone, ask you to open it. They can check your text, your emails, your social media.

Wayne Baxter
They take your laptop. If you have a laptop with you.

Heidi Son
They can open your suitcase to see what's in there. You know, if you said, hey, I'm just coming for a wedding for a short visit, but then they see all this clothes and they're with, like, you know, like your winter jackets or whatever, when it's only September, things like that, then. Okay. I thought you said you're going to be here for a couple of weeks for a wedding.

Heidi Son
What the hell? Why do you have a parka? Like down parka with no, oh, everywhere or whatever it is? So, if you're in the secondary and you've done something that you know you shouldn't have done or maybe you don't even know, I would say the best advice is be very humble, be very contrite, be apologetic, be respectful, and to cooperate and, answer the questions as honestly as possible.

Heidi Son
Once you start lying, everything goes south from there. And once you start being defensive and argumentative and, rude, right? That's the worst.

Wayne Baxter
Thing. It gets into a shouting match or into a fight. Yeah. Then you're going off the rails.

Heidi Son
Okay. Once this officer starts to get angry, you're not coming into the United States. You're being turned back.

Wayne Baxter
Yeah. That kind of leads me to a I was thinking about this about because, again, I've been getting used to obviously going back and forth and going from, you know, that F-1 visa and I could I won't get into that. But that was an experience. But then you, you know, I got I've been going back and forth obviously for quite a while now.

Wayne Baxter
And you know, that's something I never want to get to, to, to mouthy with a, a border agent. But one thing I've often wondered, and now that you're here, I'm gonna pick your brain on, is how much authority does a border agent actually have? And I just say, you get into that, maybe it goes off the rails inadvertently.

Wayne Baxter
Like, if they make a decision, is it is this something that can be appealed, it can be overturned or is it like too bad. So sad. What I said goes. And I said, how does that work?

Heidi Son
It's too bad to say that what I say goes so real.

Wayne Baxter
That cut and dried.

Heidi Son
Well, they have full, full discretion, right? They're the protectors of the border. So, you know, for national, right, you have no rights in the United States. You have no right to be in the United States. And so you are asking for a favor to that. Officer. Please let me in. I'm a good person. I'm coming in for lawful activities that are allowed under the visa category that I'm coming in.

Heidi Son
And that's what you have to convince them. The assumption is you're supposed you're coming in for something you're not supposed to. So,

Wayne Baxter
So you're in this case, you're in a way, you're kind of presumed guilty before you're innocent. So you had to prove that when you do the border, you had to prove that you're not coming in for something nefarious.

Heidi Son
Right?

Wayne Baxter
So the border agents perspective is, in theory, that you are coming in for a reasons that you shouldn't, and you have to convince them otherwise.

Heidi Son
Right? So it's called immigrant intent. So the, the, you know, so you are a green card holder. Of course. No problem. You come in right. You're just like a U.S. citizen, basically. Although unlike eight years ago, it wasn't treated that way. So hopefully it's still the same. But, so, you know, optimistic.

Wayne Baxter
Heidi.

Heidi Son
Yes, I will try. Well, if you're basically every person, every form visitor is assumed to have immigrant intent, immigrant intent, meaning that you are trying to live permanently in the United States as a green guide.

Wayne Baxter
Okay.

Heidi Son
So you have to convince the officer.

Wayne Baxter
That you want to you're actually going to leave.

Heidi Son
Right? So you didn't leave when you're supposed to, and you're not going to be doing anything you're not supposed to be doing while you're in the United States. That doesn't mean just crimes or being doing something stupid. It also means you are going to limit yourself to the activities you are allowed under that visa. Remember is supposed to be a privilege for you to be coming into the United States as foreign foreign nationals, right?

Heidi Son
And so you're not entitled to any rights. You're not entitled to be in the United States. So I think sometimes I have a hard time explaining this to clients who are very wealthy individuals or who are top executives of you know, huge conglomerates in Asia.

Wayne Baxter
Don't they know who I am?

Heidi Son
Right? Right.

Wayne Baxter
Don't they know who I am?

Heidi Son
Right? I call it the entitlement attitude. And I had one client who said, you know, he's supposed to be going through this visa interview at the consulate. And he goes, well, you know, I, I'm going to have to bring my chauffeur. And what can can they give me a VIP parking lot parking space? And so I said, oh, no, you can't park, period.

Wayne Baxter
You cannot be the best because I get VIP parking at the U.S.

Heidi Son
Yeah. So that he could just go straight into. Oh, sure. But yeah.

Wayne Baxter
They are really surprised when they went through what a surprise that was, that was going into the U.S. consulate. I'm telling you, it belts shoes off. They were checking my dossier, all my immigration for reason, like they were like, you know, I was they were like, it's not it. Yeah.

Heidi Son
Yeah. I was like, you can play parking and like. Or you can bring your chauffeur, but he will have to drop you off and then you have the one.

Wayne Baxter
Chauffeur may be subject to a body cavity search too, by the way. So.

Heidi Son
What do you mean you can't give me a VIP parking? So,

Wayne Baxter
That's that's classic. I. I was just trying to envision that. All right. I'm sorry. I'm getting off the rails here. That's great. Heidi, seriously? Oh, well, what do you call it again? The, entitlement attitude. The entitlement attitude. I'll be good. Okay, look, I know you've given us a lot of time here. Before we wrap up, I have one more.

Wayne Baxter
I want to get back to this one because I talked about earlier. I talked about, my favorite visa, the E-2 visa. So one that helped me, get into and working here with one capital. And I'm forever grateful. Now, this is, again, I think you would acknowledge, as we've seen here with this new administration and sort of this trend towards a merit based system.

Wayne Baxter
Right. So because of this, do you think this is going to lead to a more positive view towards though e to the, the ITA, investor who's coming to the US saying, I want to start a new business, do you think it will be in the program be changed, made easier? What what is your view on that program in particular?

Heidi Son
Yeah. So, just to clarify, the E-2 investor visa is a temporary visa. It's not the same thing as an Eb5. That's for sure. Reckons the, visa. So, eb5, there's a requirement for you to invest at least $1.05 million, right? For the most.

Wayne Baxter
Part, it was 500,000 back in 2012, by the way.

Heidi Son
Yeah. Not anymore. Yeah. So, and there's a long waiting period. So the E-2 investor, short, temporary visa is actually a very good, alternative for a lot of, foreign nationals. You have to be a foreign nationals of a certain country nationality. So not everybody qualifies. For example, Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese. They're not a treaty country with the United States.

Heidi Son
So there is no E-2 option for them. So for like Canadians, for example, E-2 is option, most European countries is an option. And like like Korea, Japan is an option for them. So it does allow for some flexibility because you don't have to invest $1 million. You can invest like 100,000 or so and you can get your E-2 visa.

Wayne Baxter
What's the limit? What's the minimum number of employees that you have to, a number of American employees you have to be able to employ in order to qualify for the E2 program.

Heidi Son
Right. So there is no regulatory minimum like the B5 program. They B5 program says you have to hire at least ten, right? Right. There is no regulatory minimum. What it says is that it the E2 enterprise has to generate enough revenue, profit so that it doesn't just feed the investor and his family. So it leaves it kind of vague if it makes it seem like you can just hire one U.S. worker in the first, you know, five years or whatever the period.

Heidi Son
Right? So it has to be reasonable and makes sense in your whatever your businesses don't require.

Wayne Baxter
I think the way it work that they said, this is my recollection, tell me this is a change, is that if you if you can demonstrate that you can employ more workers, it makes the visa more easy to be approved, is what I understood. It is that is that accurate or not?

Heidi Son
So basically it depends on the type of business. So right say you're starting I don't know, a food truck business. Right. Well likely the likelihood is that you can't hire ten workers but you can't right in the truck. Right. So so you.

Wayne Baxter
Could but you could have, you could, you could have nine trucks. So I'd I mean.

Heidi Son
I'm saying if you started with one. Got it. Yeah. So and then if you're approved, I'm sure like the embassy would be okay if you hired one person or two people. Got it. Versus let's say you're starting a high end sushi restaurant in Manhattan and you hired only one U.S. worker. Well, then.

Wayne Baxter
That's going to be a very interesting.

Heidi Son
Yeah. Problematic. Right. Like they're going to be like, well, what did you get the other 20. Oh my oh my uncle, my you know cousin mine. Whatever benefit is a little bit more dicey.

Wayne Baxter
All right. Well listen, you know what? You awesome guests and I say, you know, as the world unfolds here, immigration wise, we're giving you a call back and we'll see where we stand in terms of how the backlog and the visas and all of that with H1 B's. Well, I look forward to an update. So now the good news is for those watching with on their website here on the Three Questions website, they can see your contact information.

Wayne Baxter
All of it's all there. But you know, for those who have been listening on Apple or Spotify, how could you? I'm sure there's going to be questions for sure now. I mean, we've probably ruled more than a few pots and pans here. Heidi. What is the best way for someone who wants to contact you, to get Ahold of you?

Wayne Baxter
What's the best way? Phone, email?

Heidi Son
Well, yeah, email is the best way. So Heidi's, son at Ksd law group.com, that would be the best way to reach me.

Wayne Baxter
Is Heidi dot song. Just to be clear, the daddy dot song.

Heidi Son
Yeah.

Wayne Baxter
Or can they connect you through the website?

Heidi Son
Yes. They can also connect me to the website, but that goes to like kind of group email. Right.

Wayne Baxter
So they email you directly. So it's Heidi Dot song at kestler group.com.

Heidi Son
Yeah.

Wayne Baxter
Perfect. Well Heidi again thank you so much. It was awesome having you joining me today. Heidi signs and immigration attorney and the founding partner of Fairfax, Virginia based Court and Sun Tang Law Group. Ready. Thank you very much. I look forward to bringing you the Three Questions podcast, and I hope you find them educational and informative. Please consider liking this video, subscribing to our YouTube channel and podcast channels, and to receive notification of when our latest episodes have been posted, please click on the notifications bell.

Wayne Baxter
Lastly, to schedule an online consultation with me to discuss your wealth management needs, please click on the link in the description box below. www.one capital.com/meetwithwayne. Thank you and we will see you soon.