This week, the Dental Amigos welcome immigration attorney Wendy Castor Hess to explore how dental practices can navigate the complicated world of hiring foreign-trained dentists. Wendy is a partner at Landau, Hess, Simon, Choi, and Doebley, and has over 42 years of experience in Immigration Law. She is fluent in Spanish  and serves as counsel to the Mexican Consulate in Philadelphia. Wendy advises institutions across healthcare, education, and technology industries, and also represents individuals in family-based cases.  She has been recognized repeatedly as one of the Best Lawyers in America, including “Lawyer of the Year” for Immigration Law in Philadelphia. 

In this episode, Wendy shares her insight on OPT (Optional Practical Training) for F1 student visas and the challenges involved with the H-1B visa lottery. She also discusses the process of obtaining green cards through the PERM labor certification process, and what practice owners need to know to avoid costly mistakes. Wendy emphasizes the need for dental practices to work with immigration specialists to navigate these complexities and ensure compliance with U.S. immigration laws.

To learn more about Wendy Castor Hess and her immigration law services, visit lhscimmigration.com or email her directly at whess@lhscimmigration.com.

Listeners who want to reach Paul can do so at Paul@DentalNachos.com and those who want to reach Rob can do so at Rob@RMontgomery-law.com.

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

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Bumper  

Welcome to The Dental Amigos podcast with Dr. Paul Goodman and attorney Rob Montgomery, taking you behind the scenes of the dental business world, all the things you didn't learn in dental school, but wish you had. Rob is not a dentist, and Paul is not a lawyer, but since Rob is a lawyer, we need to tell you that this podcast is for informational purposes only and shouldn't be considered legal advice. Listening to this podcast does not and will not create an attorney-client relationship. As is always the case, you should formally consult with legal counsel before proceeding with any legal matter. Learn more about the Dental Amigos at www.thedentalamigos.com. And now, here are the Dental Amigos. 

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Rob Montgomery  

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Dental Amigos Podcast. I'm Rob Montgomery, and I'm joined, as always, by the Head Nacho himself. Dr. Paul Goodman.

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Paul Goodman  

Great to be chatting Rob.

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Rob Montgomery  

And it's good to talk to you, Paul, on what we believe to be the only podcast that is hosted by a dentist and a lawyer. 

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Paul Goodman  

We are special. 

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Rob Montgomery  

Yes, we are special. We are and we're gonna keep telling ourselves that too. And today we have a very special guest, truly special, that I'm excited to talk to. It's somebody that we have referred clients to over time, is an immigration lawyer, Wendy Hess.  She is going to talk to us about some topics that practice owners and Associates need to think about, now, and in an ever evolving legal landscape.

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Paul Goodman  

I get asked about this all the time. I'm excited.

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Rob Montgomery  

Yeah, I see that on Nachos as well. Occasionally, I do chime in with some some thoughts and comments. Paul, when it comes to the immigration stuff, you will never see me say anything other than you need to talk to an immigration lawyer, the experts. I think for our listeners who can appreciate this is kind of like an oral surgeon during doing ortho, maybe, or an ortho doing a root canal, like it's just, it's its own specialty. And lawyers that practice immigration law, that's all they do. And because it is such a specialized thing, and it's ever changing, and as a lawyer, this is one of those subject matters where if you're not staying on top of things on a regular basis and the changes in the law, you can't really provide good advice. So it's not something that lawyers should dabble in. And by no means does Wendy Castor Hess dabble in this. Wendy is a partner in the immigration law firm of Landau, Hess Simon Choi and Doebley and has been practicing immigration and nationality law exclusively for over 42 years in diverse legal environments, including at the US Department of Justice, Board of Immigration Appeals. In her practice, Wendy offers strategic and practical non immigrant and immigrant immigration law solutions to individuals and businesses, particularly in the medical, university, pharmaceutical and IT communities in related compliance matters and in family immigration matters. Wendy's fluent in Spanish and serves as a trusted counsel to the Mexican consulate in Philadelphia. Wendy is a frequent national and local speaker and author on immigration matters, and a long time member of the AILA, and she has served in numerous leadership roles and committees. Wendy has continually been listed in the best Immigration Lawyers in America, including in 2024 as the best lawyer of the year, in 2018 as the best lawyer of the year, and 2014 is the best lawyer of the year for Philadelphia. So Wendy knows her stuff when it comes to immigration law. I'm excited to learn more and myself and for our listeners to hear. And now, without further ado, here's Wendy Castor Hess welcome, amiga, and thanks for being on the show.

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Wendy Castor Hess  

Well, thank you Rob, and thank you Paul. I'm excited to be here now. When you hear the word excited and immigration in the same sentence, you're probably all groaning, because immigration is not fun. When I was listening to your introduction, Rob, and talking about sub specialists, and they shouldn't go outside of their areas. What I'm if right now dealing with some of the immigration issues is as bad as now without anesthesia. I figured your listeners can understand.

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Paul Goodman  

We really we can relate to that, Wendy. Well, before we get started with that, we ask some hard hitting questions. You know, we are in the same city. So if we were in Philadelphia, where would you tell our listeners to go for nachos and what is your favorite topping?

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Wendy Castor Hess  

Well, this is a problem, because I don't really eat nachos in Philly, so I go to Cape May to Delaney's. Those are the best nachos.

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Paul Goodman  

Cape May is at Delaney's, very nice. What's your favorite topping?

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Wendy Castor Hess  

My favorite topping is different cheeses.

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Paul Goodman  

like that. Well, I will share with you, because I know your office in there Las Bugambilias in Old City is outstanding. So on Mondays, they have a margarita Nacho madness thing. So you should walk over and check it out sometime. On third and chestnut, Margaritas on Monday. 

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Rob Montgomery  

Paul, yeah, Margarita some Mondays through Monday, right?

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Wendy Castor Hess  

Yeah. Well, on those days when my clients don't get their H-1B numbers, then maybe I will kind of wander over there.

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Wendy Castor Hess  

Dial up Dr. Nacho. Meet you Monday. 

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Paul Goodman  

You know, margaritas are good on any on any day that ends in Y.

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Rob Montgomery  

My favorite Margarita day back in the day used to be Sunday, but that's that was a different time. Wendy again, really excited to hear we could probably talk for hours about these issues. So I really want to kind of frame this as some practical advice and guidance for for associate dentists and for practice owners who either currently employ peoplewith different immigration status or are considering that. So let's just start from the dental student and dental school standpoint, where somebody is a foreign dentist, what's the proper path to work authorization for a foreign national who wants to stay in the United States. 

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Wendy Castor Hess  

There are two types of dentists that are here who are foreign nationals. The first are those that enter on F-1 student visas. And typically, and gentlemen, correct me if I'm wrong. We see them at Temple and Penn a lot. I don't know if there are any other cities, any other places in the city, but that's where I'm seeing most of my dental student clients. After a foreign student has completed their course of training, they're allowed to do something called Optional Practical Training. That's called OPT so if you're with a bunch of foreign students who are dentists, you're going to hear them using words like OPT or STEM OPT. But basically, foreign students, after completion of a full course of studies, which will be dentist school, are entitled to apply to their foreign student advisor, and they have to do it on timely nature. So I always tell them talk to your foreign student advisor, make sure you've done this within the time frames permitted. And if they timely apply, they are given one year of free work authorization, blanket work authorization, but only blanket for the company or the practice that they've stated they're going to be working for when they apply to their foreign student advisor for this optional practical training. And the concept behind this is we've now invited foreign students to come here. They've gotten an education. Let them work in an American practice, so when they go home to their home country, at the completion of all of this, they're going to have a really good education, not just the classroom education, but the practical experience. They're also, in some cases, entitled to an additional beside that, one year, 24 months of what's called STEM OPT now, what typically happens when I have a client come into my office, or I have a dental practice call me or a young dentist, and the practice owner says to me, I love this dentist. I really want to keep them. What can I do? And what I say is, great, let's keep them on this OPT, but right away, we want to look at the second step. And the second step is something called an H-1B visa. An H-1B visa is a petition that's filed, and we can talk at another time what the difference is between a visa and a petition. But for right now, it's a status. H-1B status, a petition can be filed by an employer, a for profit or nonprofit. Big difference, we'll explain in a minute. And what that petition says is this dentist has passed, has Pennsylvania license or New Jersey license or Arizona license, wherever the practice is going to be located, they must be licensed. This dentist must have completed the full dental program. And with that, you apply to USCIS, which is immigration club, Department of Homeland Security, Immigration, and you show that the individual is going to be paid the prevailing wage as determined by the Department of Labor. So it's not what you want to pay, it's what the Department of Labor in the location says needs to be paid. Example, Lancaster is going to be very different than Philadelphia. Erie, Pennsylvania is going to be very different than, let's see, Montgomery County. So much is geographic. 

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Rob Montgomery  

If I may stop you for just a second. Question. Is this a minimum salary? Could they pay more if they wanted to? 

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Wendy Castor Hess  

Absolutely you are.. It's wonderful if you pay more. And a big question that I always get, sometimes my practices do an incentive, and they go, Okay, we're going to do a base salary of X amount, and then if this particular young dentist brings in X amount, then that's going to be added to their salary based on incentive or bonus. Bonuses don't count incentives don't count what they what Department of Labor looks at. And we'll talk about the enforcement aspect of this at the end of this, this program, but you as an owner of a business, need to make sure that you are complying with the H-1B rules. So you file this application with USCIS, part of it has to get something called a labor condition application from the Department of Labor, in which you show what they will tell you what the prevailing wages. I look it up. There are different websites. And I say to my clients when they call. If they say, Well, I want to pay $40,000 I'll say to them, No, this is what this level of experience in this area of employment must pay, according to the US Department of Labor website. So really, to do this, H-1B which is the jump starting into the next step of keeping somebody here after they finished their F1 bite of the apple practical training, and keeping them beyond that is to be eligible for the H-1B which is called a specialty occupation, requires payment of Department of Labor's mandated prevailing wage at the site where the practice is going to be located. Now, what I've seen and Rob and Paul, I'm sure you've seen this, so certainly, you know, jump in. But a lot of times I've seen dental practices where it might be a startup practice and they say, Well, we're going to have our young dentist set one practice in Lancaster, then we're going to send them to Cherry Hill, then we're going to send them to Philly and they split up their days. That's absolutely permissible, but there has to be a Department of Labor, Labor Condition Application for each site of the practice, at the prevailing wage of the practice. And that's where I come in. That's the kind of work that I and other immigration attorneys do. 

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Paul Goodman  

When, if I could just, just because I get asked about the first if I'm the practice owner and I interview someone like this, I just want to make sure I'm being clear because or I'm not confused that first year, you don't have to apply for any of this or that I misheard that the OPT thing, the OPT year, if I said I want to hire someone directly out of dental school to work for me in New Jersey, do, if they're in their OPT year, do I need to apply for the H-1B visa?

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Wendy Castor Hess  

No, you don't, but yes, you do. Isn't that a great answer? Yeah.

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Paul Goodman  

Two lawyers. Two lawyers versus one dentist. Rock on. The next time you ask, you ask a dentist if you need a crown, they're going to say, Maybe yes, maybe no. I've had

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Wendy Castor Hess  

That happen. Well, seriously, very important, and that's a great question, Rob what let's talk about, besides how the what the statutory requirement is have past dental school, have your licensure, and the job can pay you the prevailing wage for this site. But there's another part of that that is equally important. There is an H-1B lottery. Not everybody gets OPG if they one year of practical training, if they timely apply for it. That's a short thing. But the problem that we have is the timing of the OPG. That's only for one year, and there is a lottery. There's a quota for each one B's. Let me tell you how that quota works. 65,000 a year for people who have undergraduate degrees, and another 25% for people who have graduate another 20,000 for graduate degrees, so you have 85,000 H-1B is available each year. It's playing the lottery. It's not like playing the billion dollar lottery, the 4 million, 400 million, the chances are a little bit better. But just to give you an example, last year, there were 470,342 applications for 85,000 slots. That doesn't sound very good, does it?

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Paul Goodman  

No. So basically we're saying is, you do have to apply for the if it's me and I'm hiring someone, apply for the h 1V visa status.

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Wendy Castor Hess  

Correct. I keep them on the OPT and then I apply year one, and if they don't get it, I apply year two, and I keep trying to do while they're on op t, because there's no for sure guarantee that I'm going to get it for them. So as soon as I can. And I apply, and I'm going to talk about timing on that, since March 1 is a very, very important day, but before we do that, I've just made everybody totally miserable. I know my lawyer, and I know I do that for many of my clients, so I usually keep chocolate and Kleenex and lots of coffee and sometimes toys for the kids who see their parents crying in my office. But for very important, there are two types of h1 B's. There are those that are subject to this 85,000 a year cap, and there are those that are not subject so your question is, I don't want to be subject to a cap. I want to be sure that I can get my young dentist from the F1 OPT student visa to an H-1B. How do I do that? Well, the answer is easy and hard. The first answer to that is there are institutions that are not subject to that cap. Institutions that are not subject to that. Capra nonprofit affiliations, of nonprofit entities affiliated with an academic institution, lots and lots of case law, the academic institutions, I could boringly talk to you all about that, but that really would be doing the root canal without the anesthesia if I go into that now, however, there are a couple of tricks, and I'll share one with you. A lot of times I have my private practice, dental practices apply for an H-1B for an F1 student who has OPT but just not get lucky enough to get one of the 85,000 so now the foreign student comes back to me. They're devastated. The practice owner is devastated. And I say, Well, let's take a look at how we get around that cap. And I'm going to teach you all a word. This is your new word for the day. It's called concurrent, h1, B if a private practice applies and does not get the H-1B during the registration, which is the next thing that I'll go into, because that's so time sensitive. If you have if you're affiliated with an academic institution, and you can get them to hire your young dentist, even on a very part time basis, as an non cap subject, H-1B Let's say you hire them for a year. Let's say you're Penn affiliated, Temple affiliated, Rutgers affiliated, and you say, You know what? How about if I have this young dentist work in your clinic, and you Rutgers hire them. You temple hire them. You can hire them. You can have them for 10 hours a week. You file the H-1B petition, because you don't have to worry about that cap, since you could have 20 million people on H-1B Since you're an academic institution, and I'll take them for the other 30 hours, and after you get your H-1B approved for the academic institution, I'm going to file a second h H-1B to work for me, a for profit company that is and that is really not affiliated with that academic institution. And all of you are going, what? This makes no sense whatsoever. And I can tell you, it doesn't make sense other than the fact that immigrations position in this until it changes, which it hasn't for the years and years that I've been practicing immigration law, is if they're working for a nonprofit institution that's affiliate, that is an academic institution, then they don't need to be counted in the cap. So they're allowed to be here. So it's okay to have a concurrent and not be counted in the cap for a for profit. Does that make sense to anyone?

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Rob Montgomery  

Well, other than the law doesn't always make sense. So this is one of those areas why, which is just not intuitive, which is why you have to work with specialists. Let me just back up for a second. Wendy, so with this, when somebody is at the OP T stage, and I guess even the H-1B for that matter, and they are working for the employer that is applying for the status, right? Like if they lose that job, they quit or they're fired, that's it, right or is it?

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Wendy Castor Hess  

It is they have a 60 day grace period to find something else, but if they don't, they have to go home. And that's why a lot of times, I've gotten involved with employment lawyers where there's this really contested. What's my date? When is this person terminated? How much longer can they stay? What the date of termination is really important. And the other portion that I from, and there, I represent both sides. I represent the dentist, foreign dentist, and I represent the employers and sometimes the foreign dentist later on. Become employers, so they're pretty savvy at that point. And I don't know who's listening, who has gone from foreign dentists needing to be sponsored to now the one doing the sponsorship, but I always say, try to do this in the nicest way possible. If there are performance issues, bring it up right away, sometimes and oftentimes, my, my H-1B dentists have families. They bought a house. They've done all sorts of things. If you fire or or let go for lack of work, a US citizen or green card holder, they're pretty upset because they have financial obligations and they're afraid that their professional career has been harmed. But when you hire, when you hire an H-1B, dentists, and you let them go, now, not only do they have to worry about all of those things, but they have to worry about their ability to stay in this country. So to me, it's a commitment, and it's it. I hire all the time, and sometimes I fire, and it's hurtful for me as an employer to fire. I don't like doing that to people, but when I'm hiring a foreign national, I'm being even more careful, since I understand on a daily basis what's at stake in them retaining the job and not being terminated.

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Paul Goodman  

I asked a question, when you just with this? So I was interviewing people for an associate dentist job, and someone said, Hey, Dr Paul, I'm of an H-1B Sit, X, Y, Z, dental office. But this is not this dental office is not working out for me. If they come in to my job, what do I have to do if they did get H-1B visa status at the X, Y Z, dental job? Does it just transfer and magically?

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Wendy Castor Hess  

That's a great question, Paul and yes, but yes, with a footnote to my Yes, again, I'm acting like a lawyer, because I don't know how to be anything else.

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Rob Montgomery  

You're forgiven, Wendy.

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Wendy Castor Hess  

I knew this was an easy crowd. Well, basically, remember I talked about being subject to the H-1B cap. And if you win the lottery, your win for that H-1B cap, for that ability to work in a private practice carries with you to a new job. So Paul and everybody else listening, if you if somebody says you I'm not happy, and you think they're a good fit for your practice, and they already have a cap subject, each one be with a not, not an academic institution, and they've already been counted in the cap, you can file, and it's a whole new petition, and they cannot start working for you till you properly file, and we have The receipt notice showing that it's been accepted by USCIS. But you don't have to worry about them winning the lottery. Their lottery win transfers to you.

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Paul Goodman  

Now I want to jump in so I know I know my dentist people very well, and they're concerned about hassle and cost. So if this was a real situation, I said, Okay, I like this dentist, Wendy, I want you to help us how, what is the like time commitment on me as the practice like, is this a afternoon of paperwork, or is this a long process?

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Wendy Castor Hess  

No for the green card, and this is a good time for me to read for the H-1B this is a good time for me to pop in. The fact that each one be visas are good only for six years in increments of three. Can never get a grant of more than three years, and then you can get another three in extension. So if you like your dentist, your foreign dentist, at during this period, you have to well into the before they hit that fourth year of maximum of six years start for the with the green card process, which is a whole nother discussion, which we may or may not get to today, but let's talk about the ages. So to go back to your question, what is the cost and what is the time involvement? Because time equals cost. Almost always, I work exclusively with dental practice managers and not the main dentists themselves. And the reason for that is the information that I need to gather is is pretty simple, net, gross, location of practice, job duties, who's going to be signing off on the firm on the forms. And then I get from the foreign national their degrees, their CV, and I also look to make sure that they haven't done anything to violate their non immigrant status that would preclude them from being eligible for the H-1B so I do an analysis of the foreign nationals credentials, and then I go to the practice and I say, oh, once I find out where you're intending to place them, I will say, All right, let's take a look. What is it in Cherry Hill at this location? How much is it in Lancaster at this location? Are you willing to pay that particular wage at this particular location? Not. Based on on incentive, not based on bonus, but a bi weekly, or however you pay normally paycheck to show that they're getting the prevailing wage, and then the cost my legal fees, which anti years and years ago, when I first came to Philadelphia, I attended an American Immigration Lawyers Association meeting, and we were somebody told me we could not discuss fees because it was an anti trust violation. So I won't discuss my legal fees, but I will say there are legal fees. And if you come to me, of course, I will quote them to you as analyzing whether we think it's a doable each one be but there are literally 1000s of dollars in filing fees. And I pulled just to give you an idea. And you all can do math better than I can. I went to law school because I couldn't do math. Who knew I'd have to figure out math for filing fees. But the typical H-1B is one fee is, if you're is 780 plus 600 plus 500 and then, if you want to do it quickly, there's something called the premium processing fee, which is $2,805 and I will tell you that all of these legal all of these USCIS filing fees exceed my legal fees. So hopefully that's helpful. Now let's other than the time takes care of that.

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Rob Montgomery  

Now it's a Wendy. The filing fee is 2000 ish, it sounds like but the Wendy's fees to file the $2,000 forms is less than the amount.

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Wendy Castor Hess  

The premium, including the Premium Plus was 2000--

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Paul Goodman  

That sounds.. It was 4885 if I did it right quickly. Okay, so if I was mine or less, that's all I'll leave it at. If I was talking to my own dental focused attorney across the table and said, Oh, hey, I want to hire this associate dentist. And this sounds great, and I'm willing to go through the process, right? And we're investing in this. I'm just assuming this has come up before. I'm sure there's many happy stories of dentist hiring H-1B visa dentist for five years and contributing to their career, but there might be ones where he said, Oh my gosh, I did this and only lasted five months. Can I recoup the fees or is this just a practice owner expense that's part of hiring?

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Wendy Castor Hess  

The latter. But great question. Let me again explain it and parse it out a little bit. Years and years ago, nobody started questioning who was paying for the H-1B and foreign nationals were paying. It is written in blood in the regulations that an employer is not allowed to charge to the foreign national cost of the legal fees or the filing fees for this H-1B because that would quote, unquote, lower the Department of Labor prevailing wage. So what I and then I have employers come to me and they go, Well, I just invested all this money. After three months, this guy went across the street to my competitor. What do I do? And there's nothing that you can do. You cannot try to claw back those H-1B, fees.

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Rob Montgomery  

Well, can you claw back? Could you have a termination provision that was long as the salary is greater than that prevailing wage that the the Department of Labor statistic puts on that that you have to pay them, let's just say you you pay them a bonus. Can you..  can that be a retention bonus, that if they don't stay on, that you're able to grab that back?

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Wendy Castor Hess  

That was, that's something we've never looked at. I've always told my employers to just back off from that and just count it as a loss. But it could be something that certainly you can look at with an employment lawyer, and I'd be happy to look at that along with the employer lawyer, but I have a practice. I have 35 people in my office, and one of the things that I've learned is sometimes, as much as it pains me, I just pay the piper so I don't have to deal with lawyers. No offense to you, Rob or to me,

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Paul Goodman  

I like to I wanted to ask too, if that in that scenario and exists such a valuable thing for our audience. If I was hiring the person who was leaving another place, we would pay a whole nother set of the 2028 a we would you have to file and pay again each time the HP visa Dennis moves. And then my other question is, I do a lot with helping dentists find jobs. Six years go by, and everything's going great, and this person's become a great part of my practice. They just finished working with me at the end of six years, and that was all I got out of it. And

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Wendy Castor Hess  

I and Paul, I will go that was Paul asking that question, right? Yeah, Paul. Okay, so before I answer that, I do want to put another footnote into the H-1B besides the financial risk that an employer takes by. A filing, the H-1B the employer also has is making some other promises on these forms. And one of the promise that the employer makes is, if they fire the foreign national and the far that they have to notify USCIS and department labor, and they have to pay for the return transportation to the foreign nationals home if they leave the country. Now, the big thing in the immigration community is we don't see our clients leaving. They go from employer A to employer B. So does employer A need to pay them the check? Our position is no, because they haven't left. But we have all sorts of documentation that we put together to make sure that our employer, A is not going to get stuck later on. And also, let's say, and,  and again, the 40 something years I've been practicing, I think I can count on one hand the amount of times clients have ever gone home from in professional situations, and it's almost always, not because they've been terminated, but because they have family matters that they have to take care of back home, like elderly parents. So it's very, very unusual, but what I do tell employers, no, you do not have to put them on a Lear job. No, you do not have to pay business class. No, you do not have to pay for accompanying family members, dogs, birds, cats, whatever. You just pay for the return transportation to the homecoming.

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Paul Goodman  

I mean, one thing we rob it also seems like as an employer, this could differentiate you as a someone who's I mean, maybe I'm just thinking, so we're kind of talking about some of the things practice owners need to be aware of. And even me, as a practice owner, I think, well, this is a lot of things that I have to do. Would I want to do them? But I also, I'm assuming this can attract candidates that you wouldn't get otherwise, if you're willing to do these things,

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Wendy Castor Hess  

you're absolutely right. And I'll give you an example. A lot of my practice has to do is representing foreign physicians and in the Philadelphia area, what a lot of the hospitals, and also a lot in New York that have a difficult time attracting or did have a difficult time attracting physicians to come to their practices because they were located in not the nicest parts of the city or parts of the country. By saying, We will sponsor for each one bees for their residency programs, they got the creme de la creme of physicians and a gentle practice. Can look at it that way, you can have number one at Penn dental who needs an H-1B visa and wouldn't choose your product your practice in the area that it's located in, but we'll choose it now, because you're one of the few practices that file the h1 B's

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Paul Goodman  

And tell us. Wendy, I got you off track. There's ended that six years go by, things are going great, and now I'm just like, oh geez, my associate has to leave. They don't always have to leave.

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Wendy Castor Hess  

No, they do not. And here's that we go into the other part, all right, so let's review the vocabulary we've done so far, H-1B concurrent, H-1B now we're talking green card. So that's our third word of the day within the green card, which is also known as lawful permanent resident status, there is a process called the perm alien labor certification. Let's backtrack to the H-1B the H-1B when an employer files, they're saying we're going to pay the prevailing wage. This person has a degree, they have a license, they're going to get, and they're going to work exactly as a dentist, just like we said we were going to do, and just like what their degree says they're entitled to do, and that you don't as an employer have to show a shortage of dentists when you apply for a green card, you have to show a shortage of dentists. Unfortunately, we can't use any of the materials that the dental associations published talking about the lack of new kids, American kids, who want to go into dentistry. None of those things are relevant. We have to undergo an archaic process called a PERM application, which has a whole bunch of parts to it, in which the employer sends to Department of Labor a description of the position. Department of Labor says, Okay, this is the salary that you need to pay, and now we want you to advertise the position in X, Y and Z, and show us that you have not gotten any minimally qualified candidates. I'm going to repeat that word again. Minimally qualified candidate. None of us, unless your practices are different than mine, are searching. For a minimally qualified candidate, aren't we always looking for the best? Yes, but the Department of Labor say, hey, American company, we know that you're pushing aside qualified US workers because of foreign national is a cheaper employee, which is not in my practice what I see, because my practice is so corporate oriented, and people are desperate for really good candidates, so they're paying even higher than sometimes the going rate just to get somebody, since there's such a shortage. But for the PERM application, it takes about three years to go through that process. So that goes back to Paul. What you asked, What do Do you what happens at year six? Well, what I always tell my clients is, Department of Labor keeps taking longer to do things, and now, with the change in administration, I don't think the quote, unquote good parts of the immigration process will be well funded, and they're not particularly well funded. They weren't particularly well funded before the change in administration. It's kind of been a stepchild. But during this period, I always say to my employers, start, if you like this new hire and they're far national, start the green card, like year three or year two, whenever you know that you think they're going to be a good fit. Now the great part, because we're talking about investment in time, which is a lot, this is much more time consuming than just filing the h 1d because I can do 90% of the H-1B for my clients, but the perm requires you to help my office draft a job description. We do. We place all the ads for you. We've used ad agencies. But when resumes are received, you have to interview them or and screen them and see if the individual is qualified. Now, Rob and Paul, I'm going to toss the question to you, maybe you Paul, because you know the market, what are the chances if you advertise these days that you're going to be swamped with qualified, remember, minimally qualified candidates. Are you going to find us dentists or or is it just so hard?

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Paul Goodman  

I mean, if I will find us dentist. I mean, right now, it depends on what area of the country you're in, but currently, I am finding US dentist for my own type positions that I advertise in for. So I might be fine, like I would if I placed in, if I had this candidate, if I had this H, 1b visa dentist that I loved working with. And they said, Well, now you have to go and advertise. And see if anybody would want the job that they had. I feel like I would get a lot of US candidates for that job like you said, depends where you are, depending on where you're the country. So if it's in New Jersey, I would say yes, if it's in Erie, Pennsylvania, I would say that might be hard. So I don't know if I'm helping clarify your question.

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Wendy Castor Hess  

No. I think that's a good answer and and that shows how case specific it is. And let's example. Let's say your office is open on Saturdays and weekends, and some of these young kids say, I'm not going to call in on a sport on a Saturday or a weekend, you describe the job, the exact requirements, and that's what I assist with. Then my office assists with we find out before we tell it we have a client. We have clients who do the ages, and then after a little bit, they come back to us and they say, All right, I want a green card. And we have this frank conversation. And the frank conversation is, what is the job description? How hard is it to find this type of of qualifications? What would happen if we advertised? And if they say this, we're going to be swamped with qualified candidates. But we really just like this person because they have such a great personality, then I'm going to say this is not a good one to go ahead and file a perm for. But I'm seeing the opposite in a lot of the dental cases that I've been involved in since especially. And again, this, I'm swinging this back at you, Paul, a lot of these young kids, and I say young kids, and they might not be young in age, but young, newly minted, they don't want to go to three offices

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Paul Goodman  

That could be part of it. Yeah, I think case specific is the right way to put it. You know, I know practice owners that if they had an associate for six years, would jump through 15 hoops to keep them in that area and working with them. And then I know other ones that it might be hard to say that no one else wants the job, but I'm I'm learning more as you're explaining it.

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Wendy Castor Hess  

And we advertise. We advertise what you need if you need them to be able to do a certain procedure, and the dentists who apply can't do that procedure. Okay, then that's a reason for disqualification for the position and you have not located minimally qualified dentists. I'll give you an example. My husband is a cardiologist. And many, many years ago, when he when we first came to Philadelphia, there were a couple of the older cardiologists who were just not up to date on the procedures. They don't do these too many cardiologists don't do these procedures now, but something called a swan ganz catheter. And I'd be sleepy at night, he'd be next to me. Four o'clock, his beeper would go off and he would say, Oh, Dr, so and so needs me go in and put a swan against catheter in well, if I were advertising for a perm, for a green card, a labor certification for a cardiologist, I would put in must be able to install Swan games catheters

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Rob Montgomery  

At four o'clock in the morning.

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Wendy Castor Hess  

On calls, 24/7 holidays, weekends, and some of your practices are that so again, so case specific, always, always, always telling the truth.

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Rob Montgomery  

I would like, that's just great. I want to shift gears a little bit, because we're kind of getting towards the end of our time, and then talk about paths to practice ownership. Wendy like, who can own a practice from an immigration status standpoint, I know that anybody other than an American citizen will face challenges, probably from a financing standpoint, but certainly I've observed sort of things that are not intuitive when it comes to this. So what immigration status can do, what when it comes to ownership,

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Wendy Castor Hess  

and that is, did you just read those january 2025, regulations?

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Rob Montgomery  

I swear I did not.

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Wendy Castor Hess  

Okay, timely question. Let's divide the world into h1 B's a non immigrant, temporary visa and a green card. The H 1d regulation on putting my glasses on as I read just changed. And typically, a lot and I some more aggressive attorneys my colleagues have filed and created corporations with Rob. I know you do for dental practices where it's 100% owned by one individual and they're self sponsoring. I always shied away from that because I always figured USCIS would have a hard time with it. So they just in the new H-1B regulation. It basically says that to have an H-1B it an H-1B beneficiary must if they possess a controlling interest in reading from the regs in the petitioner, meaning the beneficiary owns more than 50% of the petitioner or has majority voting rights in the petitioner. Such a beneficiary may perform duties that are directly related to owning and directing the business, so long as the beneficiary will perform specialty occupation duties a majority of the time consistent with the terms of H-1B now this is really new, and we're all trying to figure it out, and have pages of Federal Register.

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Rob Montgomery  

What does it mean Wendy and it's TVD right?

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Wendy Castor Hess  

Yeah. Now, but, but what I'm reading it to mean that now they're saying each one be beneficiary. Can have a controlling interest in the petition, in the petition, which means they can self sponsor. So Dr.Patel can create an entity and call it Patel Dental Services Inc, and file for their own H-1B petition, even if they have a controlling interest. But I always like to do with less than that, but something that I would study and but now we get to the green card.

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Rob Montgomery  

When it's the first second, it used to be that h1, B's could not do that, correct?

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Wendy Castor Hess  

Right, well, even though, what? Well, in a comp, a corporation. Rob, as you know, is a separate corporate entity from the individual. So what my colleagues were doing, my more creative and inspirational, and some of them are fabulous attorneys, but again, I said, you know, I did, I wanted to take the conservative approach. Is they were creating corporations, and they said, hey, the corporation is a separate entity from the individual dentists, so the corporation could sponsor, and this wasn't just in dentistry, but in all sorts of other companies, and they've been successful the small startup things. But I think this rule opens it up more. But I do want to, before I forget, tell everybody that there's a deadline for this H-1B registration. If you were cap subject and you want to register one of your foreign students on OPT or even bringing somebody from overseas, you have to register them between March 1 of 2025 up until March 20th to be eligible to be chosen in the lottery. And then the numbers and the people who are registered, their registrations, they'll know on October 1 whether well, they'll know before that they on, they will know in late March whether the registration has been selective. And then they're going to have from April 1 to 2025, 90 days to submit the completed petition. None of this means a lot to you, but what I can go back and just say, if you're going, if you're thinking of doing this, you should be starting now, since before you can file the eight day, March 1, each one be registration online. Your company has to be registered with the Department of Labor, and that takes a little time.

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Rob Montgomery  

Good to know. Okay, so that's H-1B with ownership. How about green cards?

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Wendy Castor Hess  

Green Card? There's a question, and I didn't pull it, but it says, Do you have an interest in this corporation. And what happens is we have, we, when we file this labor certification and we indicate that we almost always get what's called an audit, where they want to know is the corporation. And let's say you have, I would never, never do this with 100% interest. I just think it's the whole concept is, if you're the 100% owner, are you gonna fire yourself if you're being sponsored? So we've done them for some companies where owners have interests, but we try to keep the owner percentage of in of interest low. So that's very different than an 100% own each one be so if we're starting this, then what I would do is whoever the foreign national was who was opening up this business. We take a look very carefully at these new regs. We stick whole pins in them and and punch and see what what we think our tolerance is, our risk tolerance. And then look at the perm and try to structure Corporation Rob with your help that would have bylaws, would have board of directors, would have ownership that would pass muster for the H-1B Department of Labor and USCIS, mostly USCIS and the Department of Labor, and also USCIS perm green card.

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Rob Montgomery  

Interesting good stuff. So, you know, as we wrap up, obviously, we're recording this episode in in February of 2025, there's, I think I've seen some things in the news that are immigration related recently, as much as I could try to avoid certain things. There's, there's no, no escaping it. Tell our listeners or practice owners, what are some you know in a few minutes, what are some of the things that they should be thinking about in the in the current climate?

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Wendy Castor Hess  

Alright, a couple of things when you file an h1 be always, always prior to this current climate, the department, USCIS investigative branch, fdns, was able to come in and knock at your door, and sometimes not even have a business card, but lately, with a business card and say, Hey, Dr so and so you filed for Dr Smith, and we want to see The records, and we want to talk to Dr Smith, and if you don't, and we want to make sure Dr Smith is working where you said he was working, and that he's getting paid what you said he was getting paid. And it used to be, I would always tell my clients, of course, let them in, because we have a compliance file. But some people have basically said, when this happens to the fdns Inspector, go pound sand. Not so it is now been codified in the new H-1B rule that you better let that fdns person in or you're not, you're not going to be able to get any petitions approved, and they're going to be other actions against you. Other thing, I nine everybody, and I hope everybody knows what this is. An I nine is a is a requirement for every single worker that you hire, whether it's your mother in law, whether it's your spouse, whether it's your child, whether they're born in the US or not in the US, each and every employee must complete an i nine, partially completed by the employee, partially completed by the practice. Their documents must be checked. We could do if that's interesting, at some point, a whole discussion of I nine, since it's a big to do and you must retain these in the event that Department of Labor or USCIS comes in. And says You are knowingly hiring somebody who is not authorized to work. And there's also a paperwork violation. If you don't check a certain box and now your I nine is not complete, you can be fined for a paperwork violation and for knowingly hiring somebody who is not authorized to work. There's an electronic system, E, verify, which I recommend all of my companies try to work with these days, because it's an added layer of protection. So now I've told you, when you do an H-1B You're opening up the door to Department of Labor and USCIS marching in. I've told you, just by being a business owner, you have i nine flash E, verify applications. E verify being the electronic version of the i nine. Now I'm going to tell you all the fun stuff about having a medical practice. And what do I have that? Two more minutes, gentlemen?

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Rob Montgomery  

Sure, sure. Yeah.

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Wendy Castor Hess  

All right. So when you're listening to all of these ice rates, like the car wash in North Philly, or other places you're saying, This doesn't pertain to me. I know who my workforce is. Everybody has documents, but I know some dental practices have labs. Who's in your labs, making impressions, who's doing things? Some of them, you have auxiliary businesses. Sometimes you have dental supply companies that don't just own. You have to be really careful about that. And there's another thing, if you have a clinic, if you have a dental practice, there was an ice memo ISIS Immigration and Customs Enforcement for many, many, many years that said, we can go in with a warrant or without a warrant, even though we need an administrative warrant, and a judicial warrant is really the best thing, and we can go in to any practice if we think there's somebody who's unauthorized and is dangerous. That's very much a simplification, but off the table are the ice sensitive areas, which is houses of worship, hospitals and schools. If anybody has been listening to any of the TV stations, which is pretty depressing, they're all equally depressing. You will hear from ice Coleman, who's in charge, basically saying that's off the table now. So everybody in Philadelphia and throughout the country, I should, well, I shouldn't say everybody always tell my kids don't make it. So everybody, but many people with that in the within the US, are very concerned that ice can now walk into a house of worship, they can walk into a school. And I've been spending a lot of last week and this week working with schools, working with religious institutions and medical facilities, talking about what to do if ice comes in. So what I say to all of you as business owners, make sure your I nines are in order make sure that if you have fabrication plans that you don't have, that you know your workforce is legal, but also in the very unlikely event that ice just Come in, train your receptionist, train your secretary, train your your front officepeople to have a plan in place. Don't make them make decisions on who they can allow in. And there's this whole big thing going on now within the immigration bar, and we're trying to figure it out. What's a private place? What's a public place, I will tell you, it doesn't seem to matter these days. So hopefully you're not going to be the subject of ice enforcement, but a lot of your patients are going if you're in low income areas with high immigrant population, in Bethlehem and Eastern in North Philly, in South Philly, a lot of your patients might be very afraid to come in. As an attorney, some of my clients are afraid to come in now. So I can do virtual meetings with them, but as a dentist, you can't do a virtual Can you?

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Rob Montgomery  

And we also, I mean, we have clients in all around the country, including, you know, border states. So, you know, in Texas and Arizona and places like that, obviously it's, it's different than it is, different issues than in Philadelphia. It's still, every place is certainly us to be aware of this stuff. You know, it's great. Wendy, thank you so much for for taking the time. There's lots of information here. I'm gonna have to listen to this podcast again after we've published it. But if our listeners want to get in touch with you and learn more about your firm and what you do for for dentists and healthcare professionals, how would they do that?

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Wendy Castor Hess  

Well, they can call and make an appointment. It, which is 215-925-0705, they can look at they can email me at W, Hess at L as in Larry H as in Harry S as in Sam C as in, Charlie immigration.com W has said lhsc immigration.com and of course, you can just put my name in or look at our website, which is www.lhscimmigration.com

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Rob Montgomery  

Awesome. It's great. Well, thanks for taking the time. Wendy, Thanks, Wendy,

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Paul Goodman  

Really helpful to my community. Really appreciate it.

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Wendy Castor Hess  

Well, thank you, both.

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Rob Montgomery  

Thanks, Wendy.

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Paul Goodman  

Thanks so much. Wendy.

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Wendy Castor Hess  

Okay, have a good day, everyone. Bye, bye.

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Rob Montgomery  

There's a lot to unpack there.

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Paul Goodman  

Yeah, just another thing that no one taught me before I went to dental school, but now I'm a practice owners hiring, and I learned a lot about, you know, ways to make your practice more competitive, ways to get access to additional applicants. And then, on the other hand, just some of the challenges that might come up and having to do so.

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Rob Montgomery  

Yeah, there are a lot of hoops to jump through. You absolutely have to work with an expert here to help you navigate the process. And seems to me, Paul, I mean, you're in the dental business in a different way than I am, that there are probably people here that really are would be good candidates to spend the time and invest on both.

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Paul Goodman  

On both sides, both the applicants and the practice owners really appreciate our insight.

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Rob Montgomery  

Yeah. Thanks everybody for listening as always. Thank you. Paul, thanks Rob.

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Bumper  

Thanks for listening to another great podcast with the dental amigos. And don't forget to tune in next time to have the dental business demystified if you're looking for more information about today's podcast, you can find it on the dental medias.com. If you're looking for Paul, you can find Paul at Dr.Paul goodman.com and if you're looking for Rob, you can find him at yourdentallawyer.com This podcast has been sponsored by Orange Line Media Group, helping dentists and other professionals create content people love find out how we can help you take your business to the next level At www, dot Orange Line, mg.com, till next time.

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