Hold onto your hats, folks—The Chad & Cheese Podcast is diving headfirst into the immigration debate now that Trump’s back in the Oval Office. Joining the chaos are Wharton’s Dr. Zeke Hernandez and VanHack’s Ilya Brodsky, serving up insights on a global immigration system that’s as tangled as a plate of spaghetti.
Expect a rib-tickling roast of U.S. and Canadian immigration laws, a flamethrower of facts against tired stereotypes, and an unfiltered look at how kicking out immigrant labor could send the economy into a tailspin. It’s a ride through red tape, housing crises, and the talent black market, with the gang calling for reform faster than you can say “fix the system, change the laws.”
With cultural vibes, economic chaos, and political curveballs, this episode promises to be as spicy as a jalapeño in a microwave. Tune in, laugh, and maybe learn a thing or two—because nothing says comedy like lawmakers bickering over who gets the last donut while the country runs on immigrant grit. 🍩😂
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Joel (00:30.202)
Yeah, what's up kids? This is the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel Cheesman joined as always. Chad Sowash is in the house and we're calling this I guess immigration game or maybe the immigrant song. I don't know, but let's let's welcome quickly back to the show. Dr. Zeke Hernandez. He's a he's a tenured. He's he's a tenured professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Maybe you've heard of it and Ilya Brodsky.
Chad (00:48.979)
Profz, that's profz to you.
Joel (00:59.428)
Brodsk Beat, he's the CEO at VanHack, headquartered in beautiful Vancouver, Canada. Guys, welcome back and welcome to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast.
Zeke (01:11.834)
Thank you.
Ilya (01:12.942)
Great to be here.
Joel (01:14.672)
All right, let's get this going. Ilja Ilja is a super fan and no one can see him with their listing, but he had such a big smile on his face when we had the intro music. He's, he's excited to be on the show. Ilja, for those that don't know you or Van Hack, give us the elevator pitch.
Ilya (01:30.478)
For sure. So Vanhec is a tech recruiting and immigration company that helps software engineers get jobs abroad and helps companies find global tech talent and relocate them to their cities. We've done over 2,000 hires, most of which have been immigrated to Canada, many as well over to Europe. And we also help US companies hire engineers remotely. Most recently, we've launched a new product that helps American companies relocate their tech talent to Canada as a way to bring people over to North America. So we've been doing that as well. And yeah, just a...
trying to change lives one higher at a time.
Joel (02:01.072)
There you go. And I would be remiss if I didn't say that Ilya is now our whiskey giveaway sponsor. So he's helping destroy America and the world one liver at a time. Thank you, Ilya. And welcome back, Dr. Zeke. Zeke, for those that didn't hear our first episode, tell us about you.
Ilya (02:09.067)
Okay.
Chad (02:10.651)
livers, livers.
Zeke (02:21.496)
Yeah, I'm a professor at Wharton, you said, also known for writing that book that's kind of there for those that are watching, The Truth About Immigration, Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers. And I study how immigrants affect the economy and firms specifically, I think, which is why I'm here.
Chad (02:28.946)
artist.
Chad (02:40.573)
was just looking for my copy and I think I left it in Portugal. So when we record again, it's not easy. Yes, it's not easy.
Joel (02:45.668)
You're actually here to make the show sound smart, which is a real struggle for us. So thanks to both of you for coming on the show and coming out. So I'll start us off with this real quick. Give us the current state of immigration. Zeke, for sure, your perspective in the US and Ilya, maybe your perspective on the global front.
Zeke (02:50.906)
Hahaha
Zeke (03:07.45)
Do want me to start in the US? Well, in some ways, the immigration system hasn't changed at all. So I think that's something really important for people to understand. There have been no legislative changes. We are still under the same system that we had on January 19th in the United States. Obviously, what has changed is the rhetoric. What has changed is greater threats of deportation that are going to affect undocumented immigrants.
But those immigrants were already outside of the formal system. So none of that has changed. I think that legally speaking, the first thing that is likely to change is that the administration has threatened to end temporary protected status and other temporary programs that the Biden administration put in place to allow.
Um, people who were claiming asylum or refugee status or like, you know, Venezuelans are a good example, right? About five to 600,000 Venezuelans who were here with, uh, sort of temporary permission to stay and not be deported. Uh, but I think that what we're hearing nothing about nothing about is any changes in the system of number and types of visas that was established all the way back in 1990, 35 years ago.
So the state is the same and the state is very different in other ways.
Joel (04:28.944)
Now I'll challenge you on that a little bit. We are hearing in the news that anywhere between 600 to 1,100 or so deportations are happening every day. Whereas under Biden, they're around the 3, 350 per day. Are you saying that that's not correct? Are there really not more deportations from where you're sitting?
Zeke (04:48.448)
No, no, no, there are definitely more deportations. But that's not a change in the system, right? That's just a change in the government's permissiveness toward undocumented immigrants. I think it's also useful to know that Obama deported more people than Trump did during his first administration. So the numbers right now are comparable to the Obama years, especially the first term. That could ramp up significantly, but
Chad (04:56.397)
policy.
Joel (04:58.904)
Action.
Zeke (05:17.624)
but we will see. I expect that it will ramp up significantly. But I don't expect, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I just said, don't expect that realistically the administration can deport 13.7 million people, which is the latest estimate of the undocumented population. We can talk more about that, but there will be more. I agree, there will be more.
Chad (05:21.689)
we're not seeing. Go ahead. No, go ahead.
Chad (05:37.799)
So we're not seeing change in policy. What we're seeing is really an addition of brute force is what we're saying.
Joel (05:44.698)
or PR.
Chad (05:46.523)
No, it's it's a lot of it. I guess it could be both. Right. Because you've got individuals who are going through the prospect of self deportation and you also have ICE raids, which is brute force. So I guess you could be seeing both. Any any comments around that and how it actually impacts the workforce? I mean, because from our standpoint being, you know, workforce podcast, HR, human resources, how how have we seen that impact?
thus far less than 30 days in and how do you think it's going to impact long term?
Zeke (06:22.232)
Yeah, so thus far in the last 30 days or so or whatever, it's hard to know exactly, right? There is a lot of chaos and there's also a lot of rhetoric that hasn't resulted in action yet. And I think that's intentional, sort of to flood the zone with threats and stuff, right? And so I think we don't know. I don't think that the administration is yet ready to share data.
And so the truth is we don't know. Now there are some things that, let's say there's very strong anecdotal evidence, right? A lot of stories coming out that labor supply is probably smaller in at least two or three ways. One is people who are undocumented, who were working are not showing up to their jobs or they are restricting their hours, right? So an anecdote might be,
a woman who say was doing household cleaning work, she might not be cleaning every week, right? She might be cleaning only a few weeks a month. The other thing, and we do know this from research, is that when that happens, actually it affects the labor output and labor participation of women, of older women, right? Of people who kind of are on the edge of working, but say if they don't have childcare, they don't go to work.
right, or they restrict their hours. And so all of these things are going to show up in GDP and other, you know, other statistics. It could show up in a construction company bidding on fewer jobs because it doesn't have enough people to bid on a job. It could show up in higher food prices because farmers aren't showing up to pick fruit. So again, those are all things that we have yet to see, but we have seen them.
in past instances of mass deportation, including during the Obama years, right? There's evidence showing that native workers restricted their labor output, that native workers lost jobs, those kinds of things because of mass deportations. So I think you can be pretty confident that those things are going to.
Chad (08:33.171)
So it.
Joel (08:33.346)
Ilja, let's go to you. What are you saying on the global front?
Ilya (08:37.516)
Yeah. So our focus is just really squarely on the software engineer tech talent market or kind of steel sets. I just want to put some context there. And we're seeing a little bit of pushback as well or pullback. So here in Canada recently, there have been some small changes that have made a little bit harder for tech talent to come here. Specifically, the companies are now required to have a little bit more robust financial proof.
before it was a little bit easier. So that's been not a huge change, but a little bit of a interesting shift in the different direction. Another change has been not in the tech talent, but against our students. So there's a bit of big pushback against international students here that has made it. I think there'll probably be a third of how many international students there were before.
I actually am of the opinion that that's a good thing because a lot of universities here in Canada were kind of exploiting international students, promising them a path to citizenship or permanent residency, charging huge fees and then actually not bringing the most skilled workers here. So that's actually been positive, I believe. But in generally, from other parts of the world, we're seeing there's still a huge demand for tech talent and countries are open and excited to bring software engineers.
skilled professionals to their cities or to their countries, I should say, as a way to...
Joel (10:07.824)
Are you seeing a greater interest in coming to Canada since Trump is in office or has it stayed stable?
Ilya (10:14.51)
Um, uh, pretty stable. We've seen a few kind of here and there, but our kind of most common pathways have been, I would say more emerging markets like South America, Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe. Um, not so much, uh, people who are in the U S just cause salaries, you know, you look at a salary for a software engineer in the U S it's probably two or three times more than, that in Canada. So it's a, uh, a big challenge. The, kind of best case scenario of what people are trying to do is make us dollars and live in Canada.
that's, that's really what the dream is right now. Yeah. Yeah.
Chad (10:47.699)
Remote work, baby. Remote work.
Chad (10:56.537)
that is awesome. going back to the not so awesome, let's talk about the knock on effects. We're talking about GDP, but it hits more than that. mean, we have, like you'd said, the lady who is only cleaning the house, your house once every three weeks, as opposed to every week. She has less money in her pocket, which means she can spend less. Not to mention if we're pushing a lot of these individuals out, immigrants,
Paid, know close to was a hundred billion in taxes last year How how do we fund police? Fire departments education in our local in our local little towns. How do we get our? Bumpy ass roads paved. I mean, how do we how do we do these things? It's it's almost like it's very short-sighted I just I'm at a loss to be quite frank because
What I see is money leaving the country when other people are saying that, you know, it's murderers and, you know, axe murderers and whatnot. What can we expect? Short term, long term.
Zeke (12:04.442)
Yeah, I mean, I think you just you just hit it on the nail for those who listened to me the last time I was on the show. I'll apologize for being repetitive, but I always use the five fingers of my hand to summarize what immigrants bring to an economy. And this is true whether they're documented or not. Right. And that's they bring their talent or labor, if you want to use that word. They bring investment.
They bring innovation, they bring consumption, and they bring taxes. And so the question really isn't, we want the I word? The question is, do we want those five things? And if you do, then you need immigrants. Because if we were in a situation where our population is massively growing because people are having babies left and right, and we have a really young population, perhaps you don't lose that much of those five things.
But in the current demographic environment, you're definitely losing those five things because you're not replacing the woman who doesn't show up to work. You're not replacing the farm worker who leaves. You're not replacing the person with a PhD and AI who isn't allowed to come because of H1B restrictions, right? You are not replacing those, right? We have ample evidence that it's not that all of a sudden, know, invisible U.S. workers show up from under rocks, right? They just don't exist even under a rock.
And so it really comes down to something that simple. Now you can make up some of it, you you can probably make up for some of it with remote workers, maybe a little bit with automation and technology. But, know, Japan is a good example of a country that really, really tried very hard to do all that. And it just didn't quite pan out as planned. So that's really it to me. It's, know, think of those five things and you lose them both in the short run and in the long run. Yeah, that's it to me.
Chad (13:56.307)
Well, even more on that side, you take a look at the actual types of skilled workers that generally immigrants are coming in. Let's take a look at plumbers or machinists or welders or what have you. In many cases, you're not going to see a robot plumber come to your house or a robot. Yeah, no kidding, right?
Zeke (13:56.956)
That's the simplest way to put it.
Joel (14:17.37)
That'd be so cool though.
Zeke (14:21.028)
Sometimes I would prefer that, but yeah.
Chad (14:25.853)
deal with less plumber's crack.
Joel (14:26.928)
Especially if it's Sydney Sweeney coming to fix my pipes, you know what I'm saying? Sorry.
Chad (14:32.039)
your pipe, construction workers, that kind of stuff. mean, we're, not going to, the things that we say that we need more of, it's just not helping us where, know, we're talking about on the, on the high level side of the house, or let's say for instance, like Ilya on the tech side, we can get remote workers for that. Hell, I mean, we can go ahead and offshore for that, but they, they, they can't do what we need to get done here at home.
Ilya (14:34.606)
Okay.
Joel (14:35.6)
you
Ilya (14:50.701)
Hmm.
Chad (15:00.167)
Not to mention taxes, not to mention buy stuff. mean, it just, to me, it seems like a really weird recipe for implosion.
Ilya (15:04.354)
Yeah.
Ilya (15:10.326)
Yeah, just on that point, that's always been my biggest wonder or confusion as to why there hasn't been tech immigration reform in the U S because you're, I don't know, maybe Zeke, you, you, know, numbers, there's probably billion dollars or more paid out of the United States every year into foreign economies to hire remote workers offshore. I'm guessing it's much more than that. There's so many tech companies.
Chad (15:19.603)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (15:37.757)
That's a great point.
Ilya (15:39.458)
Yeah, like especially Latin America right now has become a huge hotbed because of the time zone. So a lot of software engineers in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia are working for American tech companies. And that's a job that's being shipped overseas with a click of a few buttons. It's really easy to do that these days, especially post COVID. So why not make an easy way for tech talent to just keep doing that job, just doing it from...
someone in the United States, cause you know, that's a lot of money that could be fueling your economy. so yeah, and even here in Canada, like the biggest employers in Canada techie scene are Amazon and Microsoft. they have huge tech posts outposts, both in Toronto and Vancouver. a lot of that is just, you know, helping folks move from around the world to Canada and then bringing them down to the United States, to Seattle or wherever they would be moving to, or just keeping them here.
Chad (16:29.875)
Mm-hmm.
Ilya (16:36.078)
Again, probably billions of dollars of salaries that are being spent elsewhere. So yeah, I think there's a really clear and simple case for tech immigration reform. Hopefully one day it happens, but until then, there's just so many jobs that are being exported right out of the country.
Zeke (16:53.838)
Yeah, let me add something to that. that's really so one of the things too is that we also and any business owner, any manager knows this very well. When you outsource or offshore a job, it's not a one for one trade, right? You lose something along the way, right? So my colleague here at Wharton-Brita Glennon did this really fascinating study where she showed
that companies that miss out on hiring H1B workers because they miss out on the lottery. So it's literally luck of the draw. They do offshore more jobs to China, India and Canada, but they don't hire one for one, right? So for every one worker on the H1B program, they can't hire here. They hire less than one worker overseas. So something is lost, right? Why is that lost? Because you can't assume
Joel (17:23.855)
Mm-hmm.
Zeke (17:42.97)
that what a company can do with a team that say all located in Austin, Texas or New York City or Indianapolis or whatever, you can't assume that they can do exactly the same thing. You're also assuming away the synergies or the win-win that come from interactions between foreign and native born workers. There's a really cool study that shows that immigrants in the US, they're only 16 % of inventors that patent, but they're responsible for 36 % of all patents.
Joel (17:53.36)
Mm-hmm.
Zeke (18:12.154)
Okay, but that but that number you can break down in two quantities that are really really interesting It's you know immigrants are inventors in 23 % of patents Okay, so more than their 16 % but the other 13 % that gets us from 23 to 36 percent is us born inventors That are more innovative and patent more because they collaborate with foreign-born inventors Why because they're exposed to new ideas to new scientific methods to new?
Joel (18:12.687)
Wow.
Zeke (18:39.204)
to new scientific networks in foreign countries that give them new ideas or allow them to patent new products. And so it's those win-wins that come from interactions of people with different backgrounds that are happening inside companies every day. And so it's not just, think this one body is identical to another body and it doesn't matter where they work, it is a huge fallacy.
And there's something lost there. And I think that this is something that HR managers really need to get because when they tell me, well, I don't want to go through the hassle of dealing with our visa system. And I agree, it's a hassle. And therefore, I'm going to put this person in London. Fine. If that's the only thing you can do, do it. But know that there's something lost when you do it.
Joel (19:26.66)
Yeah. Zeke, I want to go back on something you said in regards to, there's really no difference in legislation. A lot of it is optics. A lot of it is maybe more enforcement than it previous. And to me, what I'm hearing you say is there's a lot of FUD, a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt that the administration is putting out there. And there's a new ad that went live recently from Department of Homeland Security. I want to play it for you and then just get your opinion on the other side.
Zeke (19:43.566)
Yeah.
Chad (20:57.307)
And I was wondering when we're going to get a good commercial from Trashy Barbie.
Joel (21:01.572)
Aside from the tongue bath that Trump got from that, are your thoughts? Any fire to that smoke or just a lot of hot air?
Zeke (21:11.576)
Yeah, mean, you know, it makes you feel so good and so safe inside, right? And who's going to disagree with the imagery and the flag and, know, but behind that, honestly, there's just a ton of falsehoods, right? You could go second by second and debunk every single one of them, right? For example, the idea that undocumented immigrants are committing crimes or bringing fentanyl in, the data is really clear. You can do this nationally or state by state.
Joel (21:16.706)
huh.
Zeke (21:36.952)
and the group that has the lowest rate of any kind of crime, drug, property, violent, crimes against animals, are undocumented immigrants, right? Of course, it's very simple, right? And the next is legal immigrants and natives have the highest rate of criminality in the United States. in fact, when immigrants arrive, crime rates go down. So actually what you're doing by deporting these people, you're actually raising the crime rate, right? And so anyway, that's a...
Chad (21:45.427)
because they don't want to get thrown out. It's easy.
Zeke (22:06.65)
So that's not the issue. Now, of course, the other assumption is that the laws that we have in place, that is you want to obey the law, right? And so if you follow the law, you'll be able to get in. That is perhaps even a bigger fallacy or a bigger lie than the crime one, right? Because right now, again, remember, what do our current laws stipulate, right? If you are a farm worker and you want a green card to work year round legally, guess how many quotas, guess how many there are for you?
Joel (22:22.202)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (22:35.443)
5,000. Really? Zero.
Zeke (22:35.97)
zero. No, zero. Right? Yeah, zero. have zero. That's right. We have we have H2A visas for temporary farm workers. But if a farmer in the middle of Iowa needs a year round worker because their son has left for New York City and won't return, which is the story of every farming family in America, there are zero visas. Right? And the same as plumbers, zero visas, carpenters, zero visas, right? The line for an engineer on an EB2.
who is from India is 195 years long, right? And so you can enforce that system all you want, right? But you're either gonna kill a lot of small and medium and large businesses, or you're gonna get a black market for talent, which is what our illegal immigration is dysfunctionally doing. my point isn't, know, Mrs. Noem, you know, we should have a lot of illegal immigration. My point is if you wanna solve the problem,
fix the system, change the laws, and then enforce laws that make sense. You want to enforce laws that make no sense? Go ahead and be my guest, but you're going to still have as much chaos in the border as you did over the last four years.
Joel (23:42.32)
But it isn't the goal here, just like with the federal workers to say, you might have a job when we get back, or you can take this severance package and leave your, they're basically taking that strategy to the immigrants and saying, Hey, we can get rid of 5 % of the immigrants. If we just say, if we catch you, you're never going to be able to come back. But if you leave, you might be able to come back. Isn't that the strategy?
Chad (23:54.117)
showing them the door.
Zeke (24:04.666)
Yeah, but that might is really kind of a bait and switch, right? Because literally there is no line, especially for what we need the most. There is no line, right? So when you say get in line, what line, right? When there's no line for plumbers, carpenters, Indians, farmers, when there's only 5,000 visas for unskilled workers that are permanent visas, right?
Ilya (24:17.954)
Mm-hmm.
Zeke (24:30.682)
You know when we only have 85,000 H1Bs and we haven't changed those numbers since 1990 and the government is making no proposal to change those things I don't believe it right now if if if you tell me first how you're gonna change the system and you say look We're gonna we're gonna all of a sudden have a healthy number of visas for all these categories Then I'll believe you but I'm still waiting right and I've been waiting for 35 years
Chad (24:57.787)
Ilja, so in Canada, there have been some changes on, was it goals? mean, what changes did Canada make? Because you guys were sucking a lot of great tech talent up, but we've seen a lot of countries take too much in, prices go up, not enough housing, so on and so forth. So there were some changes recently. What changes did they make and do you know why they made the changes?
Ilya (24:58.765)
Yeah.
Ilya (25:09.187)
Yeah.
Ilya (25:19.479)
Thank
Ilya (25:25.75)
I think exactly for what you just mentioned, Chad, we did bring in too many people, too many unskilled workers, students, et cetera. And that has caused a housing issue. I always wonder how the second largest landmass in the world with only 40 million people has a housing crisis. It's kind of crazy up here with that. But we did have, you know.
Chad (25:47.409)
Not enough immigrants to build houses, that's why.
Ilya (25:50.798)
Yeah, yeah, well, exactly. It's a double-ledged, it's a catch-22, I guess that's the term, right? So you have a lot of people who came in that frankly should not have been led in, I mean, in my opinion, guess. And there was a huge rush of people immigrating. I'm all for immigration. I'm an immigrant, I moved here when I was a kid, obviously worked in immigration. I want there to be...
great skilled talent and similar to what Zeke said, like I think there's a huge opportunity for reform and new laws. But we, think, went maybe a little bit too far in terms of allowing people who just don't have the exact skills that are needed for the workforce. And so, yeah, I don't remember exactly all the stats of what changed, but there was a huge change for lower skilled workers. So if you're in a salary that's below the median wage.
in Canada, then the chances are getting what's known as an LMIA, a labor market impact assessment, which is kind of the employer part of the work permit process. You basically won't be able to get those. So they've restricted that quite a bit. They also made a huge restriction, as I mentioned, to students. So I think they capped the amount of students that can come to Canada to about half a million, whereas before it was much higher than that. And those are all good changes. just, I feel like
we'll see right now the challenge is that there's there's about two and a half million people here in Canada, which is a significant part of our population from percentage point of view that are here at temporary residence. And they're expecting about a million of those to leave before the end of this year because their status is going to expire. So they are trying to, you know, encourage people to leave because the work permit is going to be expired and they haven't made it an easy path for permanent residency. So
A lot of our engineers that we brought here, they're kind of at either close to the end of their work permit expiration, looking for a way to renew it, or they're worried about where they're going to stay. So it's challenging, but I also feel like it's such a huge balancing act, right? That you want to bring in enough people, but what if you bring in too much and how do you change that and fix it? yeah, huge challenges, but I think overall there's been a...
Ilya (28:10.054)
In the last year, a large anti-immigrant shift here. And I think generally the country has just shifted to the right in terms of that because there's whole bunch of reasons we can go into. Yeah. Well, no, Trudeau hasn't been the best prime minister. Yeah.
Chad (28:23.697)
Yeah, they're called down south is what they're called. Yeah.
Joel (28:28.4)
Right. mean, to use a, to use a hockey ism, go where, go where the puck is going, not where it is. And I know part of your job as, CEO at Van Hack is to sort of expect what's coming down the pike. And Trudeau is on his way out. I think everyone in Canada is aware of that. And, and Pierre, Pierre is, Pierre is on his way in more than likely. I don't know if you agree or disagree with that, but he's much more Trumpian. So you as CEO of your company, how do you expect immigration to change in the future? And does it impact.
Ilya (28:42.562)
Yeah, he's responding.
Ilya (28:46.912)
I am.
Joel (28:57.252)
the high tech, high skilled labor force that you work with on a regular basis.
Ilya (29:02.126)
Um, I hope not. Uh, we haven't heard any indication either way. Um, I would say like the right wing are more pro business and this is a very business visa. know, uh, every engineer who comes to Canada creates jobs, um, about three jobs, um, so, or to any country, right? So, uh, I w would hope it wouldn't change. We will see. But, um, I think that. Yeah. For this type of immigration, the biggest thing is you just got to decouple kind of.
Skilled, unskilled, legal versus illegal, right? Because immigration, feel like, gets painted with this big brush, right? Everyone's just like, immigration is either great or bad, and there's no real nuance. In my opinion, obviously, you don't want to bring in, like, you're recruiting. It's like, immigration should be like recruiting, right? You're looking for the best and brightest and the people who are going to fit your team. And if someone's not a fit, then that person shouldn't be on the team kind of thing. So yeah. We'll see, though, to answer your question.
I'm hopeful that they won't change it, but it's one of those things that, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Joel (30:02.468)
Hope for the best, expect the worst.
Zeke, what do you expect in the US? You said a lot of laws haven't changed. Do you think some things will change in the next six months or so?
Zeke (30:15.226)
You know, it's a good question. I was expecting that very quickly the Trump administration would introduce some kind of reform on the high skilled side, the so-called high skilled side, right? Yeah, so you know...
Chad (30:26.963)
They were talking about it. Well, at least Vivek Ramaswamy was and it, yeah, yeah, and Elon and then apparently Vivek got too loud and he got kicked in the curb.
Joel (30:31.938)
Elon.
Zeke (30:38.138)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, given that it seems that Elon can act with impunity for now, and he's so in favor of more H1B visas, and generally, you know, there's been a signal that, we want the quote right kind of immigrants, I would have expected by now some legislative proposal, whether it's to increase H1B visas or expand the number of employment sponsored green cards, right? We only have 140,000 of those per year in the US, which is
crazy, right? But no, right? It's surprising that that hasn't happened, especially because this is kind of the honeymoon phase. It's also in some ways telling that everything the administration is doing is through executive order rather than through Congress. But, you know, that's what I was expecting, right? I am not expecting this administration will expand family-based or low skilled immigration.
Chad (31:08.499)
Mm-hmm.
Zeke (31:36.494)
So yeah, that would be it. certainly there will be more and more systematic enforcement, right? That's gonna be, I think, hallmark of the next four years. But I will say perhaps to react a little bit to what Ilya is saying, I think I agree with this idea of you wanna think of immigration as recruitment, where perhaps I, not that it's a difference of opinion, but perhaps where I would make it a little more nuanced is at what level is that decision made, right?
I'm not a big fan of the federal or national government making that decision. I think that the right level is firms. I think the right number of employment visas are what firms demand. I think that's one thing that does work very well in the US system. We just don't have enough of them. So what doesn't work well is the quantity.
but the idea that a firm would tell me, these are the workers I want, because then they arrived and they have a job as opposed to the proverbial Iranian engineer driving a taxi, right? Because they were recruited with a point system, but it turns out that no employer really wanted them. The other thing is that I think, and this is also the reason why I would have firms drive the process is that there's sometimes a false separability between skilled and unskilled, right? Take a company like Amazon, right? They need a ton of engineers.
you know, you know, design their algorithm and all of these things. But, you know, who's driving the trucks and filling, you know, fulfilling, you know, filling packages in warehouses, it's also immigrants, right? And that's true of many, many firms. That's also true in many industries where one firm hires a skilled immigrant, but it can't function without its upstream supplier, its downstream distributor, which depends on unskilled labor. And so I think that
Chad (33:05.619)
warehouse.
Chad (33:23.474)
Mm-hmm.
Zeke (33:26.554)
We want to be a little bit careful. The final thing I'd say is also skilled immigrants often are married to unskilled immigrants, right? Or they have unskilled parents and they might not want to come if you don't make a visa available for that person that they love. so, again, not to say that we should just say have an anything go system, but we have to be very careful about selecting for just one type of immigrant without considering the unintended consequences.
Chad (33:53.191)
Let's take a look at the, the, the U S ecosystem just in itself. And we're looking at more of a microcosm in the talent movement. We've seen cities like Tulsa actually offer digital nomad. You could call them visas to some extent, right? Money to actually come and work in Tulsa. And that is reviving that city. Why? Because those are individuals who are coming in, they're making money, they're buying stuff.
Zeke (34:06.458)
Yeah.
Chad (34:21.479)
They're paying taxes. They're doing all these things that Tulsa needed to happen to be able to be revived. Now that's on a much smaller scale on digital nomad scale versus a much larger scale with every single occupation you can think of, not just remote, but also the individuals who are actually working in that community. For me, this all seems incredibly counterintuitive because we want to sell goods and services.
We want to make stuff. We want to be America. And this seems incredibly counterintuitive to all of that because we're not going to make more stuff. not going to, prices are going to rise. Issues are going to come of this because taxes aren't going to be paid. Stuff's not going to be bought. I mean, it's just, it's, it's, I just don't understand it. So how do we, how do we take a look at the actual talent market in itself?
and try to equate that to what's going to happen in the economy, not just for business leaders, but for politicians. How do we, because it doesn't seem like any of this is adding up for them.
Zeke (35:32.098)
No, it doesn't. I'm curious. I really do want to hear Ilya's answer as this pertains to Canada and other places that he knows. But in the US, you're right. all of that is right. One of the most telling moments of the presidential election for me was a whole Springfield, Ohio thing, right? The eating dogs and cats and all that. Right. And I think it was very telling. It was very, very telling that the Republican mayor of Springfield, the Republican governor of Ohio,
at great risk to their political career came out and spoke up against that and said, we need these Haitians desperately, right? Our factories in Springfield would have closed, property values are going up for the first time in decades because guess what these Haitians are doing? They're buying dilapidated properties, remodeling them, putting them on the market, right? Our schools are populated with children, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that there is, even though
Chad (36:18.493)
Yes.
Zeke (36:28.568)
what's happening at the federal level in the U S doesn't jive in the state in the way that Chad said, when you go to, when you talk to mayors, governors, chambers of commerce, business owners, especially small and medium business owners, they get it. And if there's very strong bipartisan support, I've spent the last seven, eight months doing this actually. and, and, and when I get below federal level and I talk to Republicans and Democrats, this is a conversation they're having. And it isn't a, let's kick these people out.
It's how do we welcome them? We need them desperately for all these reasons. And yes, of course, there's a conversation of how do we have a system that is less chaotic. But the default is we want these people, not we want to keep them out. And so I think that also the point of this is like what you're hearing at the federal level is really disconnected from what's happening on the ground. So one possibility, I don't know if this will happen, but one possibility in the next four years is that you'll see more
complaints from the bottom reaching the administration saying, wait a minute, right? Our constituents are suffering, right? For all these reasons, they might not do it publicly, they might do it through quieter channels, but I expect some of that to happen. Yeah.
Joel (37:40.88)
In Canada, it's the same thing, but it's eating the moose and it's eating the beaver. Did I just say eating the beaver? my God, that's bad. Ilja, what are you hearing from a Canadian? What's the culture think about immigration?
Ilya (37:46.327)
Hahaha.
Chad (37:46.451)
you
Chad (37:50.417)
Not again.
Ilya (37:55.799)
We do have a very famous chocolate pastry treat called the Beaver Tail. So yeah, we're enjoying those.
Joel (38:01.88)
Yeah you do. Yeah you do.
Ilya (38:08.334)
All right. Well, just to quickly go back to what Zeke said about employer driven, I totally actually agree with that. think that's the way that our tech visa works is if the company gives you a job, they're the ones who then sponsor your visa. And we don't have a cap on that. And I do feel like that's the model that the US should copy. Yeah, we have, I would say over in both countries, Canada and US, know, land of opportunity, country of immigrants. So it's been a big part of the driver of our economy.
for decades and quite a long time. I do feel like our points-based system is fairly strong. The challenge with things like doctors or engineers, my wife's actually a dentist from Brazil, so she couldn't practice here because it was very difficult. The challenge becomes in the accreditation system, not actually the fact that the person can move here, but once they do arrive here, there's a lot of unnecessary red tape and hoops they have to jump through to actually work in their profession. I think that's more something that needs to be solved rather than...
allowing specific certain people. Here in Canada, it's kind of an algorithm or formula of your age, education level, if you speak English or French, how well, because we have, the two official languages, a few other factors that I'm forgetting right now, but essentially this, and that determines whether you can get selected for your permanent residency and come to Canada as a great Canadian green card holder, or we call it a PR. I think that
And I just think that it's been what you like you said 35 years since there's been any immigration reform in the US. So I think like doesn't matter which side of the aisle does it. It's like someone just needs to do it. There just needs to be immigration reform in the United States. Like hopefully the next four years or four years after that or some time that just needs to happen. Cause yeah, there's this such a huge economic unlock that could be provided by creating that. And I would do some copy of
the Canadian system, maybe look at places like Germany in terms of their skilled workers have been pretty good, the UK, et cetera. And yeah, tying immigration much more to a specific job, whether that's to a quote unquote, low skilled or high skilled or whatever wage, as long as there's demand from the employer, I think that's probably the best way as well as a certain amount of people just kind of thrown in who are meeting the criteria that the company's looking or the country's looking for. Yeah.
Joel (40:29.232)
That French thing is rough. That French thing, especially in Quebec, you got to speak French. that's rough. Zeke and Ilya, everybody. Let's start with Zeke. For our listeners that want to know more about you, maybe get their hands on your book. Where would you send them?
Chad (40:37.011)
for a song.
Zeke (40:46.986)
It everywhere you buy books, know, Amazon's the obvious, but I, you know, I'm a big fan of smaller booksellers who really appreciate it. So, you know, whatever your neighborhood bookstore is, don't get it at the library because then I don't make money. No, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. If you can't afford it, go to the library and I, you know,
Joel (41:03.792)
Such a capitalist pig.
Chad (41:05.779)
Who has a library card anymore?
Zeke (41:13.548)
Writing a book is the dumbest money making strategy that I could think of. So I didn't write this for the money. But yeah, anywhere books are sold. Anywhere books are sold.
Joel (41:24.878)
Give them the website. I know you love giving the website.
Zeke (41:27.636)
yeah, so if you want to go to my website, zkernandes.net, zkernandes.net, all one word, you can learn about the book. But also what you'll find there is a lot of other resources. So if you have, look, any hot button question, you can find it there. You can find resources. I'll show, I'll take you through the original research so you don't have to believe me. You can go to the data, you can go to the research. I think you'll find it to be very useful and refreshingly positive, right? Because immigration,
Joel (41:41.04)
Mm-hmm.
Zeke (41:56.678)
There's research showing that when you mention the word immigration, people already tense up and have negative connotations. And so lot of what I'm trying to do is to say, look, this isn't a fear issue. There's a lot of optimism once you know the facts. yeah.
Joel (42:09.432)
And speaking of optimism, let's go to the Canadian who are all known to be super optimistic. Ilya, where do you send people that want to know more about you and Van Hac?
Chad (42:12.616)
Yeah.
Chad (42:16.999)
And everybody who can't watch, this is audio, Ilya literally was just drinking a whole bottle of maple syrup. Go ahead, Ilya.
Ilya (42:26.83)
Super trooper style. Well, first of all, I'm going say I'm optimistic we're going to beat you guys in the Four Nations faceoff game on Thursday. I'm not sure if anyone hears a hockey. Yeah, we'll see. It'll be a good game. Yeah, VanHack, very simple, vanhack.com, vanhack.com is our website. Just go there and sign up either as an employer for looking to hire some great tech talent or if you're looking for an opportunity, check out the candidate side. And then I'm the only person in world with my name.
So if you Google me, I'll come up. LinkedIn is probably the best way to reach out.
Joel (42:59.952)
There you go.
Chad! That is another one in the can. We out!
Ilya (43:04.898)
I'm turning.
Chad (43:06.951)
Way out.