The EB-5 Investor Visa Silicon Valley - Immigration Attorney Sophie Alcorn

EB-5 Investor Portal Podcast

Floyd Mitchell: Hello EB-55 investors this is Floyd Mitchell with EB5EB5.com. Welcome to Episode 4 of the EB-5 investor portal podcast recording on Thursday July 27th 2017. Today's episode is titled The EB-5 Visa in Silicon Valley with special guest and immigration attorney Sophie Alcorn. Sophie's firm Alcorn Immigration Law helps corporations, start-ups and small businesses in Silicon Valley sponsor the biggest talent in technical fields for U.S. Immigration. Alcorn Immigration Law has a 95% success rate in defending immigration and innovation with visas, green cards and citizenship. We are really excited to have Sophie on the show today and she'll be sharing more information about her firm and the EB-5 program. Sophie Welcome to the show.
Sophie Alcorn: Thank you Floyd, I really appreciate it.
Floyd Mitchell: We appreciate your time today and for sharing more information about your firm's approach to immigration especially the EB-5 program. What is the most common question you get from your immigration clients.

Sophie Alcorn: Yeah the most common question is.."How can I stay in the United States or how can I get the United States". Even though there are so many options and so many laws that allow for legal immigration to the United States it's so confusing to try to decipher them and navigate them. Immigration law is one, if not the most, complicated types of law in the United States. Many judges have complained that it's even more complicated than our crazy tax law system. And if you couple that with the fact that most people who need to navigate U.S. immigration law are from countries where English is not the first language that they learn and if they speak English they speak it as a second language. It's just so unfair and so difficult for them to try to decipher what immigration laws mean. As a non-native English speaker especially so what I see my job as and our team what we do at Alcorn Immigration is really, we come in to help understand...What is your specific situation? Where are you at? Where do you want to be in your life? How do you want to get there? Who do you need to help like your family, your company, your employees, and what? And then we we brainstorm. We use all of the tools of immigration law, visas, parole, green cards, citizenship and so we come up with a lot of creative legal options to help figure it out and then we turn it over to our clients because what it's really about is our clients figuring out what are their priorities. So you know given where they are and where they want to go would they rather pick option A which has these pros and cons, option B which has the pros and cons, option C, and to really give a lot of thought to, "How do I want my life to work?" How long can I wait for this visa? Do I want to try to get it inside the U.S. or outside of the United States? How much do I care about when I'll be able to work in the United States? Do I just want to be here physically? Do my children need to go to school? Which type of school do they want to go to? Do I need to travel a lot back and forth for business meetings or board meetings? Or do I need to just plant myself in the United States and not travel because my kids are really young? So you know everybody's situation is different but everybody has questions. And so people are just delighted to have the opportunity to make an intelligent decision about about their future and to feel like they have some control in choosing one of these strategies that we offer.

Floyd Mitchell: I understand that your firm's primary focus in terms of clientele is the Silicon Valley area, the individuals who have immigration needs and the companies that also have immigration needs. Can you tell us what's unique about serving these clients?

Sophie Alcorn: Yeah, we get to help people who are coming to Silicon Valley coming to the United States who are focused on innovating and changing the world. They're not just starting software companies but also biotech, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, 3-D printing, robotics and the fact that we get to be a part of this process and helping so many brilliant and skilled people come here is really what gets me up every morning and gets me excited to come to the office. There are amazing people and I love helping and hearing everybody's stories and their plans for what they want to do in the United States. You know and a lot of our clients just want to come to make a better life for themselves and their families and that's pretty inspiring too.

Floyd Mitchell: The type of work you do is deeply human. Isn't it? Your clients are really relying on you and trusting you to guide them and help them navigate a really complex system.

Sophie Alcorn: It is... Absolutely it's so much about trust and relationship building and clients come to me scared. We get hundreds of calls every month from people who are scared. They're confused. They're lost. They know what they want but they're not quite sure how to get it. Or maybe they're not even sure what they want because they've they've even given up hope because it seems too complicated. And yeah I mean the easy scenario in which it makes sense then it's completely obvious to say that immigration law is deeply human where it could be an asylum case for example. But even when I am representing the director of a huge museum or somebody running a publicly traded huge Chinese company it is still deeply human deeply personal work because it's their lives it's their futures and everybody cares about what their life is going to look like. And especially when kids come into the picture what opportunities their children will have growing up in a certain way of life or culture and having opportunities resources freedom good education systems opportunity to go to college in the United States. Those are things that are really really important to our clients.

Floyd Mitchell: That is a really unique perspective. Would you say that the children of your clients are a major motivator in the EB-5 program?

Sophie Alcorn: Oh.... It's the primary driving factor for many people who are getting EB-5 green cards. Sometimes even families who are living abroad they have teenage children or children in college in the United States as foreign students on F-1 visas. Often the parents are still busy working and they need to stay in their home countries such as China but they will even give their child their 20 year old the five hundred thousand dollars for am EB-5 regional center investment so that their child will have the ability to live in the United States after college without needing to go through the crazy random H-1B lottery for professional visas. There's no guarantee that your your adult child will be able to stay and actually pursue a professional path in the United States. So yeah, what people go through for their children, inspires me every day and I have two little kids. I'm just awed by the love in families of my clients.

Floyd Mitchell: It's very selfless. I've heard stories of entire families pooling funds so that one child can have an opportunity to get an education in America and then pursue a life and career in America. After graduating from school. Can you speak about what that may look like for the international students who are also applying for the EB-5 program?

Sophie Alcorn: Absolutely... It's a huge advantage. For example there are many international students from all around the world who live in the San Francisco Bay area which is where my practice is located. Young Indian software engineers look to many countries to have the opportunity to have good jobs after college when they're adults. And there is migration out of India for example to Australia and Canada and the United States. So if somebody is trying to go as a young professional to Australia or Canada those immigration systems are point base, they're merits based, you calculate how many, you know what your education is, what languages you speak, what professional certifications you speak, and if you get enough points then you have a chance to go live in that country. Well, that's great for a lot of people, they like that. But a lot of people really want to come to the United States whether it's for the culture, the work environment, the opportunity to start a business and have that business thrive from the resources in Silicon Valley. There are a lot of laws here that are favorable to business. So for many many reasons people really want to come to the United States. But our immigration system is set up differently so it's kind of crazy if you think about it in a way. So for somebody to come to a United States University to get a bachelor's degree, they typically would get an F1 student visa. And in order to do that they have to prove to the U.S. consular official at the embassy or the consulate in their home country where they're going for the interview. They have complete ties to their home country. They're just coming to be a student and after they graduate they're going to go back home to their home country. They have money there, they have property, they have family, all of their ties are in their home country and they have no intention of staying in the United States after they graduate. And that's just completely crazy because if you're going to spend $100,000 so that your child can go to college in California maybe it's $200,000 now, I don't even know. You want your child, you want your adult son or daughter to be able to actually live in the United States and practice the profession that they've studied so hard for and that you've put so many resources into. So what typically happens for F1 students, is when they graduate if they get a bachelor's degree or a master's or even a Ph.D. they get one year of optional practical training. So they get a one year work permit and they're allowed to stay here and they're allowed to get a job and make money and they're allowed to just work for one year and then they have to go home. If they're lucky and they made the choice to study in a STEM field which is science, technology, education or math, they can get a conditional work permit for two years. So that means on the outside you've got three years to work after you get your degree and then what's your next move? Well, you have basically one of three options in that situation. Either you find an employer who you like, and isn't mistreating you, who's happy to sponsor you for a green card and invest you know 10 or 20 thousand dollars if not more, into your immigration process. They sponsor you for an H-1B Visa. You're lucky enough to get selected in the lottery that only happens once a year and only has a one in three chance of you getting selected and then the employer is still happy with you, they haven't gone bankrupt, they don't have layoffs. And then they sponsor you for the green card process. You know this could easily take 15 years if you're from India or China. So that's one option that has a lot of uncertainty. Another option is to fall in love and marry U.S. citizen and intend to spend a life together and get a green card that way. But I'm guessing most parents of 22 year olds who have just paid for their son or daughter to go to a U.S. university do not want them to follow that path. And so the third option where you actually have some control in the matter is the EB-5 route because if you can give your son or daughter the investment capital as a guest and they can apply as an investor themselves into a regional center to get a United States Green Card. And so we've helped people do that and the peace of mind that comes from knowing that you're in control of the process is huge because the stress of the other routes can really wear on people psychologically.

Floyd Mitchell: There may be people in our audience listening today that are unfamiliar with EB-5. Can you give us a general overview of the program for example... What does EB-5 stand for and how does a program work in layman's terms?

Sophie Alcorn: So EB-5 stands for employment based fifth preference. And there are three types of green cards in the United States. There's the green card lottery which is only for certain countries and which is very random. There are family based immigrant visas or green cards which depends on your husband, mom, dad, sister, somebody with a certain relationship to you sponsoring you for a green card or there are employment based green cards which is what the EB comes from and employment based green cards could be for brilliant scientists with extraordinary ability that could be for university researchers. They could be for multinational executives transferring from one branch of the company to another that could be for professionals with advanced degrees that could be for skilled workers. So those are all the preferences. Number one through four. And then EB-5, the fifth preference is the investor green card option and this originally started back in the 90s with a route for which you invest one million dollars in a new U.S. company that creates 10 jobs for Americans. And if you do this then you're able to get a green card and live for the rest of your life in the United States as a permanent resident. And once you're a permanent resident you have a green card and you could potentially apply for citizenship one day. And then a little bit later on there was a new variation that came out which is with regional centers and so it has some benefits, it's a lower financial threshold it's only $500,000 and you also don't have to actively run the company, you can be a passive investor and the 10 jobs don't need to be created directly by the company. They can be created indirectly nearby in the geographic area in which you're locating your project. So that opens up the possibility of having construction land development projects that use a lot of construction workers and contractors instead of directly employed employees. And those projects can qualify for this EB-5 Regional Center. So yes! With the EB-5 you can invest $500,000 into a regional center. It creates indirectly 10 jobs in the local economy. And the person who invests the money is on a path to getting a green card. There are some wait times but essentially you apply it could take anywhere from one and two and a half or three years right now to get your first green card. You have it and then it's valid for two years. As in you're a conditional permanent resident and then there's the filing window at the end of the two years where you do another immigration application and you're applying to remove the conditions on your permanent residence. And you're saying "hey the project did everything it said it would, the jobs were created, the money was invested, there was no fraud, everything is legitimate". And if the government says "Yes" then they say "OK so you're no longer a conditional permanent resident, you did everything you said you would, you follow the laws, now you are a full fledged permanent resident for the rest of your life and you can live and work anywhere in America and you can become a citizen one day.

Floyd Mitchell: As you know, Sophie there's always new people discovering EB-5. So thank you for explaining that.

Sophie Alcorn: Well and I think one of the values that my practice adds to somebody who is considering pursuing this is we do not limit ourselves to be five. It's absolutely a substantial part of my practice and our and what our team does. But we're familiar with the whole range of immigration options of every type of case really. And so that helps us advise our clients about is this really the best option for you. You know oh did you know that you actually have this other path that could be faster. Sometimes people want to know that. Often often that's not the case. And EB-5 really is a great and the best route. But it's important to have the whole universe of options in U.S. immigration law at our fingertips so we can provide the best advice and understand the whole immigration context for our client earlier.

Floyd Mitchell: Earlier, I recall you mentioning the H-1B program and my understanding of that program is that it offers a way for America to invite and keep some highly skilled and talented individuals here from other countries in the United States. With the current administration deciding to delay and possibly rescind the international entrepreneurs rule. How is this affecting certain people? And do you have any advice for those affected? I mean, this is a big surprise to a lot of individuals who are here in the States on these visas. What can they do?

Sophie Alcorn: Thanks! That's a great question. So, it raises very many things which are all important to touch on I think. And one of them is what's so first let's break it down. So what's going to happen with H-1B. So the H-1B visa is for professional workers who have a bachelor's degree or the equivalent amount of work experience in a certain field and they're coming to the United States they're being sponsored by an employer to do that job. And it's required that the employer sponsor them and pay for the entire immigration process. And so it's very difficult for qualified candidates to find jobs and employers who are willing to sponsor them sometimes because that's a lot to go through. And on the other hand there are this has come into the news a lot because there are a few giants particularly Indian consulting companies which sponsor very many Indian workers each year. Tens of thousands for H-1B visas and then outsource them to U.S. corporations in the United States for project work. So Congress limited the number of H1-Bs each year to about 80,000 I believe. And last year for example there were over 230,000 people who applied for H1-Bs which is where that lottery comes in and why there's a one in three chance of getting selected and the EB-5 has come under fire a lot because there have been reports of some companies firing U.S. workers and replacing them with H-1B workers. There's been a lot of rhetoric by the current political administration against this type of visa. And so you often hear about is this going to be reformed? Is this going to be changed? And at the beginning of the most recent legislative session in January yes there were a lot of bills that were raised to reform it and some of them talked about increasing the minimum salary for H1-Bs to make it more prohibitive for companies to sponsor them. Some of those I think mentioned reducing the total number of H1-Bs. Other bills have proposed requiring the employer to go through a Labor certification analysis where they would have to try to recruit U.S. workers prior to being eligible to sponsor somebody for an H-1B. They have to prove that there are no qualified, willing and able U.S. workers to do that job. None of those bills have actually happened yet and the only change to this process has been the ending of the premium processing service. So it has made it more difficult for people to get quick responses on their H1-Bs. So instead of two weeks if you pay extra. Now everybody has to be in the same line which takes about seven months. This has made it a lot more difficult for professionals to change jobs and switch to new employers because there's a lot more risk involved now. But then a few weeks ago there was some other leaked information that Politico reported about what immigration reform that the presidential administration is actually participating in what that reform would look like. And so... Four big likely changes that might happen if and when actual immigration reform happens with Congress will be that the overall level of immigration will be decreased. So right now there's about 1 million green cards issued each year and in the future if this proposal goes through there would only be about 500,000 green cards being issued. They are also going to dramatically reduce family based immigration. They might cancel the green card lottery entirely. There might be additional options for merit based immigration based on professional achievements. This could definitely increase very long already very long wait times for people from China and India. But right now this hasn't happened. The EB-5 program is still intact at least for the next couple of months until the next sunset every five reform will probably be addressed separately. Then more general immigration reform all of this turmoil and anti-immigrant rhetoric that we hear coming out of our government is leading to a lot of fear for immigrants and our clients about how is this going to affect me. What is this going to mean. How much are my chances for staying here. How much will they be reduced. And another thing you had mentioned Floyd was the cancellation of the immigrant entrepreneur rule. That is significant too. It was going to be a new immigration pathway that the Obama administration had created that would allow foreign entrepreneurs who have started companies and so usually in Silicon Valley they get angel investment or venture capital investment if their company would have raised over $250,000 and they own at least 10 percent and they want to come here to establish the company and run it and create jobs for Americans. They would have had an additional path to immigrating and staying in the United States. The Trump administration pulled that off the table. They're looking at it again. So all of this is to say that an already complicated situation is becoming more complicated and so people are using the EB-5 five right now in a wide variety of situations to get them an option to émigré that they fear might be quickly disappearing. And so I'll mention two recent clients who are in unique situations and I'll do it anonymously because they need to protect their privacy. But just the general situation. So you know the typical profile over the last several years has been a Chinese family. Who wants to be able to get green cards and move here with a large focus on education for the children. But the two recent situations that we're helping people with. One of them is an Indian professional on an H-1B who works at a U.S. company and they've sponsored him for a green card. But it's probably going to take another 10 or 15 years if nothing changes. But as we just talked about things are going to change and it's going to get more difficult. And he just really wants to be able to work independently from his current employer and have a startup and not need to worry about who's who is going to get a paycheck from or that if his if there's something goes wrong with his job that that could mean that he has to uproot his entire family and go back to India. So his family is helping him pool together money to meet the $500,000 threshold from their properties and with loans and various sources. He also has savings from his job in the United States. You can get a home equity loan line of credit. So he's being very resourceful to make this happen because he wants to take control of his future into his own hands so that he and his wife can start a family and know that they'll just be able to stay in the United States. And then another client is a startup that has a huge amount of success with raising venture capital recently and their valuation skyrocketed. And they have somebody in another country who's been deeply involved in creating the product and they're going to use some of that money that the company is now worth. So that the company can help this person get an EB-5 green card because they don't even want to deal with the H1-B lottery and they know they're serious. They just want them to be able to live here. It might take a while but let's just make this happen in one of the least risky ways. If you find a good regional center, this is one of the least risky ways to do things (with EB-5) So there's a lot of uncertainty. The law will probably change and people who hadn't previously considered the EB-5 program as an option are now seeing it as a good option.

Floyd Mitchell: Are you seeing a trend with these Silicon Valley investors utilizing the EB-5 to retain their executives to keep these entrepreneurs here in the States.

Sophie Alcorn: Yeah I think it's absolutely possible and that's what's happening with my client company. They really value this high level. C-level engineer's contributions to the company and they just want this person to be able to stay here. And yeah it's completely possible. Each company would have to make that determination. But if it's a small company that's raised a lot of capital. I've talked to many investors who would be supportive of using some of that for the entrepreneur's immigration process because if it's a young company and the person even though they're brilliant and hardworking and have a great product even if they're not been internationally acclaimed for many years so that they can get a green card based on extraordinary ability. It could be very difficult for the company in which this person has a bunch of equity to sponsor them for a normal employment based green card. So EB-5, absolutely. If a company has the money and really cares about the person, it could make sense as a way for that person to getting a green card, for sure.

Floyd Mitchell: I just look at this from the investor's side Sophie and they've already made a substantial investment. You know a million dollars in some cases maybe several million dollars in these startups and to retain their CEO or to keep these top level individuals here in the United States so that they can focus and grow the company. It makes sense for them, the investors to maybe consider EB-5.

Sophie Alcorn: And I talked to a lot of investors, venture capitalists, angel investors and when they're going through the due diligence process scoping out these companies more and more they're asking, "What is the Founder's immigration status"? "Are they here as a tourist for six months just trying to raise money and then at the end are they going to have to leave or are they going to overstay and get deported"? That's a huge risk if somebody is investing potentially millions of dollars into a new venture, so yeah, if you're committed to making this company work, then it could be an easy answer to add an EB-5 to the mix.

Floyd Mitchell: We've covered a lot so far in terms of EB-5 and immigration. What is the biggest misconception in EB-5 right now?

Sophie Alcorn: I think the biggest misconception is that it's all fraud and abuses Americans. There's been a lot of media coverage about some very shady bad practices that are definitely illegal. But you know just because there's one bad apple doesn't doesn't mean that the whole bunch is spoiled. And I get the pleasure of meeting really good, decent, law abiding, driven, hardworking people who are in the EB-5 field who really just see this as a useful legal tool to help people. And so I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions which mostly comes from people who aren't really familiar with it or maybe have a fear of immigration in general. But this this type of green card that EB-5 really provides a lot to be gained for everybody because at its core the whole point is to create jobs for Americans and put more money into the United States economy.

Floyd Mitchell: In the EB-5 program, there's the regional center route where you invest and then there's the direct investment route where you create a company that creates 10 jobs. What percentage or mix would you say your firm handles between the two types?

Sophie Alcorn: We're doing a mixture of both with a regional center, it's a little bit more replicable. The main issue that we need to focus on as the immigration attorney for the investor is to help prove the source, and the path of the funds and how all of the money was legally earned and can be traced and got to the United States in a legal manner. For direct investment on the other hand, there's a lot more questions it's a lot more fluid and flexible. Obviously the investment amount is higher but it's a more creative effort and for somebody who is an entrepreneur who has some experience doing with this we find that they're more comfortable investing the larger amount of money or have or locating their direct investment company in a targeted employment area to still do it at the $500,000 level. But the difference is, they have to directly manage and control the 10 employees and they need to be actively involved in the business. So it depends on the investor. But with the direct investment we do have more creativity an opportunity to structure the business in a way that makes sense for the investor and their business plan and what their goals are. So it's just two different styles.

Floyd Mitchell: And under the direct investment option you're kind of doubling your risk because you not only have the potential of getting your green card on the line but you also have to run and manage a business. So you have to really know what you're doing in business to be successful at that. With regional center route you just invest and kind of wait. Is that correct?

Sophie Alcorn: Oh yeah. You don't do very much at all if it's in a regional center. I only recommend the direct investment if you're a seasoned entrepreneur who's already succeeded at establishing several companies and this is not your entire life savings and you already know what you're doing with running a business.

Floyd Mitchell: What is it like to be an immigration client at Alcorn Immigration Law? Can you give us a bit of an idea of how you work and what someone could expect if they were to hire your firm?

Sophie Alcorn: Sure. So at Alcorn Immigration we put our clients front and center. We are our clients advocates and we work really hard to make sure that we dot every I and cross every T. And for us it's all about our clients, it's all about understanding what are your goals? What are your priorities? What are your options? How are we going to weigh all the pros and cons? And how can we use all of the tools that are available to us in U.S. Immigration Law to serve you. To help you find the best path for you and your family and your kids for their education and your career. So how are we going to structure this? In addition to the EB-5, do we need a short term temporary non-immigrant visa so that you can start living here sooner? How will that interact with the EB-5? We're very hands on and we help our clients with every aspect of the process.

Floyd Mitchell: I'm sure you keep up with the latest in the immigration and EB-5 industries specifically. My understanding is that September 30th 2017 there's going to be some new things that come about in the EB-5 world. Do you have any insights about what we can expect or any news or anything that you could share about EB-5 that you may have learned recently?

Sophie Alcorn: Well I have some some new updates that I think are interesting to share that we got last week from a USCIS stakeholder meeting. And so there are four or four important things from this. July of 2017 that I thought could be useful to share with our audience. So one of them is about the EB-5 backlog and the USCIS adjudicators are are trying to work to get through the backlogs that have been caused by the continual sunsetting of the EB-5 program every five months. But their goal for 2018 is to decrease the processing times for I526's which is the first petition that you file in that process. And so hopefully that means that processing times will decrease. It's taking USCIS about 21 months right now and hopefully that will go down next year. Another update is that the EB-5 backlog for China is going to increase and that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is predicting the wait for Chinese individuals who have approved I526's is to be eligible to get a green card based on the visa bulletin will go up all the way to a four year wait. Right now it's about a 3 year wait but next year it might go up to a four year wait. And then additionally they're restructuring some things internally at USCIS and they have a new pilot program where they have a team of economists and adjudicators who are all working together on the I829's for the removal of conditions. And they're doing this to experiment with how they can reduce the processing times. On the other end of the two years when you're filing to remove the conditions after the investment has been made and then they also pointed out that there's a part of the USCIS website online which is about how you can how you can prepare your I526 filing to make it easier for them to process and tips that you can do to help streamline the process and to help make it faster for you. So the update from USCIS is they're trying to do a lot of things to speed it up because they know they've got problems but there are so many people applying that processing times are going up especially for China and so once again it's just if this is something you're interested in the sooner you start the less time you'll have to wait. So I think that's an important tip for anybody who's seriously considering the EB-5 immigration program.

Floyd Mitchell: A lot of people in the industry are saying that the $500,000 amount is 20 years old. It's the same amount that Congress first used in 1990 when they made the program. Some say it's going to go up?

Sophie Alcorn: Yeah I've been hearing a lot about a lot of chatter about the amount increasing. I don't know what the actual change is going to be but the numbers I keep hearing are that the regional center will go up from five hundred thousand eight hundred thousand at least and then the direct investment will increase from 1 million to maybe 1.4 million. But I've also heard higher numbers being tossed around. So this is really important for investors too until September 30th 2017. The amount is only going to be five hundred thousand dollars for regional center investments. So if it would be outside of your budget to get a green card by investing $800,000 - you really have two months from the time of this podcast to do everything to apply.

Floyd Mitchell: And for the investors listening today if they want to take advantage of that $500,000 amount before it goes up can they call you and do you have the bandwidth to help them with their EB-5 5 case?

Sophie Alcorn: Absolutely. The sooner you decide that this is something that you want to do, and let us know, the better. We still have capacity to take on more EB-5 clients as of July 2017. But as we get closer and closer to that September 30th deadline it's possible that we won't. Because there's so much demand. So if it's something that you're interested in... Yes, we can absolutely hope you we're at Alcorn.Law and you can contact us through our website. Please try to let us know as soon as you can to increase the chances that we'll have the capacity to help you.

Floyd Mitchell: Well, it's very apparent Sophie that you genuinely care about your clients and really enjoy helping people. And I just want to thank you so much for all of the information you've shared with me and our audience today. It's just been really great. Can you tell us how you got into this line of work?

Sophie Alcorn: Well thank you Floyd. I really appreciate it. We care a lot about our clients the way I got into immigration law is because my dad was an immigration lawyer. He practiced immigration law for over 35 years during his lifetime. My mom is an immigrant from Germany. And so I grew up surrounded by immigrants and bridging two cultures and being exposed to two languages. And so I understand what it's like to pick up your life and start over in a new country. And my dad inspired me because I saw him helping immigrants and fighting for immigrants all the time. And so when I started my practice I really wanted to carry on his legacy of advocacy and compassion.

Floyd Mitchell: That's really, really cool to hear more about your background and that your father did this. You can hear your passion for helping people and this has just been a really fun podcast and we hope to have you on again soon. Thank you again.

Sophie Alcorn: Thank you so much. This was fun and I like what you guys are doing and I've been impressed with the level of professionalism with the other podcasts that you've done and I'm just happy to be a part of it, so thank you.

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