Immigration Nerds

What is a plate of food supposed to do in a room full of diplomats? Make the room go quiet. Craig Harnden was seven when he asked his mother what you call someone who cooks for a living. From packet cake mixes in a Bristol kitchen, he went on to Michelin-starred kitchens in England — including seven years at Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons — and four and a half years on Richard Branson’...

What if the thing an immigration lawyer did all month was lunch? Once a month, on a Sunday, a group of AILA DC attorneys and paralegals sits down at a restaurant chosen to match the book they have all just read — a Salvadoran kitchen for Jonathan Blitzer’s Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here , Dominican food for Angie Cruz’s Dominicana . They call it the Belonging Book Club, and since late 2024 it has be...

The wage floor for H-2A got rewritten on August 3, 2026, and farm workers stand to lose up to $5.4 billion a year. The worker protection rule is rescinded, demand is at a record high, and a federal court just called the whole thing unlawful. LJ D'Arrigo, Immigration Practice Leader at Harris Beach Murtha, returns for his third visit to tell Lauren Clarke what it means at the kitchen table — and wh...

On June 30th, the Supreme Court struck down the president's birthright citizenship order 6–3 in Trump v. Barbara, with Chief Justice Roberts writing that children born to parents unlawfully or temporarily present here are citizens at birth. Six weeks later, two new executive orders arrived — one narrowing who qualifies for birthright citizenship, one titled "Ending Birth Tourism." Host Lauren Clar...

For nearly 50 years, international students could stay in the United States as long as they continued to make progress in their programs. No fixed deadline. A PhD candidate who needed a sixth year could take it. A doctor could finish a residency and move into a fellowship. An adviser at the school made that call. On September 15, that ends. Students arriving after that date get a firm expiration d...

Work permits for TPS holders from Haiti, Syria, and five other countries expire July 17th and 24th — dates that have already shifted twice. Plenty of shows are re-litigating the Supreme Court's ruling. We're asking a harder question: what actually happens right now to the workers and businesses caught in the middle? Luis Zaldivar, Business Engagement Director at the American Business Immigration C...

As America counts down to its 250th birthday, Forbes is counting something else: the 250 most successful living immigrants in the country. In this episode, host Lauren Clarke sits down with Forbes Senior Editor Alex Knapp, co-editor of the new Forbes 250: America's Most Successful Living Immigrants list, to pull back the curtain on how a list like this actually gets made — and what it reveals abou...

Your neighborhood pool may be short-staffed this summer — and the reason probably isn't what you think. Lauren Clarke sits down with Mark Overmann, Executive Director of the Alliance for International Exchange, to unpack the quiet crisis hitting seasonal businesses from the Jersey Shore to the Ozarks. The J1 Summer Work Travel program has been filling the gap in America's seasonal workforce for mo...

What if the most powerful immigration story you heard this week came from a picture book? Jacqueline Alcantara is a first-generation American and award-winning illustrator who has lived the experiences she draws. She's the author of Tíos and Primos — a children's book pulled from her own childhood of crossing language barriers to connect with family in Honduras — and the illustrator behind Just Sh...

With the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicking off in roughly four weeks, Immigration Nerds welcomes back Ryan Propis, Vice President of Security and Facilitation at the US Travel Association, for a progress report on US readiness. Since his September appearance, a lot has changed — visa wait times are down, the FIFA Pass expedited appointment system is live, new CBP staffing and biometric technology invest...

What if the H-1B visa experience — the lottery, the waiting, the uncertainty about whether to buy a sofa or commit to a relationship — could be experienced in a game? Journalist and game developer Alison Yang did exactly that. Yang talks to Immigration Nerds host, Lauren Clarke, about her upcoming simulation game h1b.life , which drops players into the daily reality of navigating the U.S. immigrat...

A confidential government paper recently surfaced in Ireland with a striking conclusion: the country needs migration to keep hospitals open, taxes flowing, and its economy afloat — even as public pressure mounts to tighten the rules. Host Lauren Clarke sits down with Katie McDermott, Managing Director of EIG's UK and Ireland offices, to unpack what that tension looks like on the ground in Dublin....

One year into the current administration's immigration agenda, the American Immigration Lawyers Association has done the accounting — and the findings are striking. In this episode, Lauren Clarke sits down with Shev Dalal-Dheini, AILA's Senior Director of Government Relations, to walk through the organization's new A Better Way on Immigration policy brief series, the first wave of which examines w...

The American Midwest is facing an existential threat—not from outside forces, but from within. Population decline, aging communities, and shrinking tax bases are creating what researcher Dr. Jonathan Burkham calls a "demographic winter." But there's a solution hiding in plain sight: immigration. In this episode, Lauren Clarke sits down with Dr. Burkham, author of the new book “Migrant Midwest: The...

As the 2026 Winter Olympics approach, Immigration Nerds explores the hidden immigration stories behind Team USA's more than 230 athletes heading to Italy. Immigration researcher Marissa Kiss from George Mason University reveals that nearly 17% of Team USA has direct immigrant ties—including foreign-born athletes from five countries and second-generation immigrants whose parents came from around th...

The H-1B program just underwent its most significant structural change in decades. On December 29, 2025, DHS issued a final rule replacing the random H-1B lottery with a wage-weighted selection system—and it takes effect February 27, just before the fiscal year 2027 cap registration season opens in March. Immigration Nerds host Lauren Clarke sits down with EIG's newest partner Naïanka Rigaud to br...

Immigration isn't just about headlines—it's about Nobel laureates, World Series MVPs, and medical breakthroughs that save lives. In this year’s end special, Lauren Clarke welcomes back Forbes senior contributor Stuart Anderson to preview his annual "Most Inspiring Immigration Stories" article. From Omar Yagi's journey from refugee to Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, to Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Ya...

2025 marked an unprecedented transformation in U.S. immigration policy. Executive orders attempting to end birthright citizenship, expand travel bans, and suspend refugee programs— along with the chaotic H-1B fee proclamation — fundamentally reshaped both legal and humanitarian immigration pathways. In this episode, immigration policy strategist Maunica Sthanki joins host Lauren Clarke to examine...

Beyond the headlines about the workforce and the economy lies a visa category designed for something deeper: human connection. In this episode, Immigration Nerds host Lauren Clarke explores the J-1 Cultural Exchange Program with Lisa Murray, Director of the Exchange Program at the American Immigration Council. From camp counselors to research scholars, the J-1 brings thousands of cultural ambassad...

American farms are in crisis. The federal government shutdown froze H-2A visa processing right when farmers need to prepare for planting season. At the same time, major changes to how farm worker wages are calculated are making everything more complicated. Immigration Nerds host Lauren Clarke talks with immigration attorney and agricultural labor expert L.J. D'Arrigo about what's happening to the...

In this powerful episode of Immigration Nerds, host Lauren Clarke speaks with Hendrika de Vries, author of the new book "Open Turns," about her remarkable journey from surviving World War II in occupied Amsterdam to becoming a champion swimmer and finding her identity as a 13-year-old immigrant in 1950s Australia. At 87, Henny shares how her family's decision to immigrate was driven by post-war ec...

In this special episode of the Immigration Nerds Podcast, we break down what President Trump's H-1B proclamation means for employers and employees. Host Lauren Clarke and EIG partner Alejandra Zapatero explain who's actually affected, whether current H-1B holders can travel safely, and what employers should do now. We address the looming legal challenges, the uncertain future of the H-1B lottery,...

Can America's immigration system handle the 2026 FIFA World Cup? With 3 million daily travelers expected and visa wait times stretching hundreds of days in key countries, we're facing unprecedented challenges. Ryan Propis from the US Travel Association joins us to discuss what needs to happen now - from expanding visa waiver programs to deploying AI-powered screening technology. This isn't just ab...

Host Lauren Clarke dives into major H-1B developments with immigration reporter Andrew Kreighbaum from Bloomberg Law. They discuss the Trump administration's proposed weighted selection rule that cleared White House review, which could fundamentally change the H-1B lottery system from random selection to wage-based allocation. The conversation also covers troubling trends of terminated H-1B worker...

Host Lauren Clarke and immigration policy analyst Cecilia Esterline from the Niskanen Center break down the latest USCIS data on the Immigration Nerds. With an 18% drop in case completions and I-90 applications seeing 938% longer processing times, the numbers reveal unprecedented administrative strain. From I-765 work authorization backlogs jumping 181% to 450 USCIS employees reassigned to enforce...