Episode 89 – Akshat Divatia (Immigration)

This podcast audio has been transcribed by an automatic transcriber.

Fred Rocafort  00:07 

Global Law and global business go hand in hand, but never seem to keep pace with each other. The importance on the global stage of developing and developed nations waxes and wanes, while consumption and interconnectedness steadily increase all the while laws and regulations change incessantly requiring businesses to stay nimble. But how do we make sense of it all? Welcome to Global Law and Business hosted by Harris Sliwoski International Business attorneys. I’m Fred Rocafort. 

 

Jonathan Bench  00:37 

And I’m Jonathan Bench. Every week, we take a targeted look at legal and economic developments in locales around the world as we try to decipher global trends in law and business with the help of international experts. We cover continents, countries, regimes, governance, finance, legal developments, and whatever is trending on Twitter. We covered the important the seemingly unimportant, the relatively simple and the complex. 

 

Fred Rocafort  01:02 

We hope you enjoyed today’s podcast. please connect with us on social media to comment and suggest future topics and guests. It is our distinct pleasure to welcome to Global Law and Business, Akshat Divatia. Oxford is an immigration attorney at our firm at Harris Sliwoski where he assists companies that are trying to secure work visas for their foreign born talent. He also helps permanent residents preserve their status and become naturalized US citizens. Oxford emigrated from India and is a naturalized US citizen. He has lived on four continents and speaks five languages. Och shot VM vanilla programa 

 

Akshat Divatia  01:54 

muchisimas gracias. Right. It’s my pleasure to be here. Thanks so much for having me. 

 

Fred Rocafort  01:59 

To get things started, could you please introduce yourself to our audience. And in particular, I’d love to hear about how your own experience as an immigrant impacts your legal practice. 

 

Akshat Divatia  02:14 

So I’m a business attorney, I help companies and their employees in their immigration and mobility needs. My clients turn to Me for you know, help in hiring, transferring, retaining talent and basically remaining compliant with US immigration and labor laws. I also help employees and their families, obtain permanent residents and become naturalized US citizens. I really value being both an attorney and counselor at law. You know, these are the attorney role allows me to represent clients in their legal matters, take them from point A to point B. But the counselor at law role is less direct, but in my opinion is just as important. It’s about listening to the clients. It’s about understanding their both short and long term objectives, advising them about those potential consequences. You know, helping them with their strategy and making sure that you have a direct line of communication with them at all times. In virtually everything I do, I do pull from my experience as an immigrant to the US. I’ve also spent time both living and studying or working in Spain, in Argentina. And so in virtually everything I do, I do pull from my experiences as an immigrant to the United States and also my study abroad and exchange abroad experiences both in Spain and Argentina. I feel from those experiences that immigrants have to balance, their hopes, their dreams, they have to be diligent, they have to be patient, they have to be proactive anytime that they’re seeking a new life, or temporary state in another country. And that journey itself is humbling, and I do feel very privileged to be able to navigate them in those voyages. 

 

Jonathan Bench  04:07 

Akshat, you refer to the US visa classification as an alphabet soup. Can you give us an overview of how visas are classified? What are some of the main categories that informed person should know about? 

 

Akshat Divatia  04:18 

Yes, so the US visa system is letter from A to w. And in the business bucket you find exchange and training visas, study visas, employment and investment visas. And in the family bucket you find visas for fiance’s for immediate relatives, and these are the spouses, children and parents of US citizens. There also are visas for victims of trafficking and crime and diversity visas for individuals of those nations that have a historically low rate of immigration to the US. So within these buckets, you have both non immigrant visas and immigrant visas the nonmember visas are of a temporary nature, and the Immigrant Visas provide a pathway towards permanent residents known as a green card. Non immigrant work visas essentially require that there’s a bonafide need and that the individual meets each regulatory criteria for that particular visa. So you have the most common non Immigrant Visas are e two, which is for investors of countries with which the US has treaties of friendship, commerce and navigation. You have h1, B specialty occupation visas, you have J ones for exchange visitors, postdoctoral researchers, or pairs. J. One is an umbrella category that includes a lot of short term exchanges, interns. Then there is a visa for intra company transferees. That’s the L one visa, you have the O one visa for individuals with extraordinary ability in the Arts Sciences business. You have a visa specifically for athletes and support personnel. That’s the P one. There’s a religious worker visa r1. And lastly, there’s a TN Visa, which is essentially for US Mexico, Canada agreement. So NAFTA, as it used to be called. Now it’s known as the US Mexico Canada agreement. It’s for professionals from these countries to come and work in the US on a temporary basis. So that’s non immigrant side, the immigrant work visas require the employer to prove that the, you know, labor market, the US labor market, and these are American workers, green card holders, were not available after a labor test was performed, thereby paving the way open for the immigrant candidates to get green cards. The Immigrant work visas also include for people who have extraordinary ability, and they can bypass this labor certification process, this good faith test of the labor market. And the extraordinary ability process allows them to get a green card by by providing evidence of their their qualifications. 

 

Jonathan Bench  07:26 

Would you say that the US marketplace if I can use that word? Is our visa marketplace? On par with other countries? Are we more advanced, less advanced? Are we more stringent, less stringent? Can you give us kind of a global lay of what that looks like from your perspective? 

 

Akshat Divatia  07:44 

Yeah, that’s that’s a great question. You know, I’d like to start by saying that, of course, US has been built on the backbone of immigrants. Even today, from the food we eat, the house, we live in the technology we use, the influence and role that immigrants play in each of those aspects just cannot be overlooked. In my opinion, the US does remain a nation of immigrants, no other country can surpass the combination of educational and entrepreneurial opportunities, upward mobility, the institutional stability, the heterogeneity, and global recognition that the US has. Of course, in tough economic times throughout history, you know, we’ve seen that immigrants are always the first to be blamed. And and in that sense, we have experienced that in recent times, the USCIS decided to remove a passage from its mission statement that indicated the words a nation of immigrants, it was moved that was intended to show a change in tone. And it was a harbinger of more alarming changes that the agency would experience in in the following months. But ultimately, I feel that, you know, us cannot shed itself of its immigrant background, it is built on the backbone of immigrants. And you know, at the same time, I feel that no country can also rest on its laurels and continue to remain in that privileged position. I feel that the more insular that US has become, the more it seeds to other nations that are trying to compete for the same talent pool. And, you know, I have two concrete examples. I see this in the immigration context, frequently where individuals who attend for nationals who attend American universities and if the immigration system is not welcoming does not allow them to get work visas. Then they look for opportunities outside the US and our loss United States as loss has been Canada’s game, you know, Canada has really benefited from taking on taking in rather, those individuals who have us degrees but were unable to find employment did not get their work visas approved. And and so they have a provincial nominee program, that has become a very popular option for skilled workers to immigrate to Canada. There are also case studies of private Canadian companies swooping in for highly skilled foreign born workers whose visa applications have been denied. They did in their move to Canada. And, you know, the workers that are contracted back to their US companies from Canada, they they’re they’re fast track to get work visas. And essentially, they’re providing their services remotely from Canada, they’re in the same timezone, oftentimes, and it is an arrangement that is a win win, because the US client and customer can can get uninterrupted access to them. And at the same time, these individuals don’t have to worry about work visas, and ultimately, their back end, payroll, legal issues, tax, HR, all that is handled by Canadian companies that is, that is arranging for this particular type of relationship. And I think that Canada is betting on the fact that foreign workers that come to Canada, because of their USB problems, they will AUC, certainly in the long run, to settle there to raise families there and generate enough opportunities and entrepreneurial ventures that simply put, you know, will help Canada, you know, bridge the gap between itself in the US. So that’s Canada. And the other experience that I have is with Chile, I feel like the Chilean government has been investing in technology, infrastructure, modern connectivity, global integration. And you know, they’re breaking down tax and institutional barriers, educating its own citizens to speak English to communicate in English. And it’s not an accident, you know, if you look at their economy, just the way that they have had a high growth rate in Latin America, in fact, the highest growth rate in Latin America, they are the first Latin American country to join the OECD. There’s low country risk, there’s generally an institutional and financial stability. It’s a very pro business environment that has attracted the big tech, the you have Microsoft, Oracle, Google and Amazon Web Services, they all have operations in to lay and their presence has attracted mid to smaller companies that that operate in that ecosystem. So Canada and Chile are just two examples of where, you know, if a talent pool cannot operate in a particular country, that pool will operate wherever it can. And I think those countries have recognized that and and made structural changes to accommodate that talent. 

 

Fred Rocafort  13:24 

Actually, to what extent, if any, do you think the pandemic has accelerated these trends? I asked. Because over the course of the past two years, I’ve seen countries advertising the fact that they are good locations for the weather, they call them digital digital nomads, and things of that sort. And most of what I’ve seen is does seem to have a certain short term quality to it. I don’t think any of that has has really developed that, at least as far as I know, into more more structured programs that allow digital nomads to to eventually opt for, for residence or citizenship elsewhere. But do you think that when we look back in a few years, we will see that the the COVID, 19 pandemic helped spur some of these movements of talent around the world? 

 

Akshat Divatia  14:29 

That’s a great question. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, if you look at it, as a trend in the US itself first, where, you know, the ability to work from anywhere, is essentially allowing people to not remain, you know, in pockets in the large cities, but instead to go to places that are more affordable, that can offer more space. And that flexibility, that ability to To, you know, have a source of income, a higher income, and then the ability to live in a, in an area that has a low cost of living. That really is it’s is a trend that I see in the United States. And if you then extrapolate from there, and you see that same trend happening in the world, as well, with individuals, who are more adventurous, end up, you know, traveling to more exotic locales, and I think the the, the driver, there is not so much the affordability, but also the quality of life. And so when you see, you know, people moving to islands and moving to tropical countries aware, they can, you know, they can work during the work hours, but they can truly enjoy what the country has to offer. That I think is here to stay to some extent, I think that, you know, there are trends, like all trends, they’re not going to continue on forever, I do believe strongly in the pendulum effect, where ultimately it’s going to have to recalibrate. And so these individuals, who are, you know, working in remote locales, at some point might decide, well, this is, I’ve had enough of my adventure, I want to go back to the US. Or, alternatively, I don’t want to work for my US employer, I’d rather work here locally, I’d rather set up a company here, I like it here, I’m going to raise a family here. So I think the pandemic has really made it possible for people to become more adventurous. I think that, you know, from a technology side, and I have a lot of technology clients, when the pandemic happened, there were no issues for us to have meetings and to communicate through zoom or teams, because they’re the ones who had enabled that particular ability. So I think that the pandemic has helped more people get used to that form of communication. And, you know, the more people hear about adventures that their friends or family members have taken, I think that people, once it’s safe to travel, might want to do that and say, Look, I I can I can cut the umbilical cord, I don’t have to be here. I can be anywhere else. And this is a great opportunity. And and I’ll try it. So I think that that is most definitely a positive trend, in my opinion, that has come about as a result of the of the pandemic. 

 

Fred Rocafort  17:42 

So I’ve shot let’s turn to the big picture. You mentioned that change in the USCIS mission statement and how that perhaps reflected broader trends that were that were going on at the time. Since then we’ve we’ve had a change of administration. And there is certainly talk about how there’s been a change when it comes to to the immigration policy, I guess the first thing we should do is check in with you and see if, from your perspective, you do see a change when it comes to immigration. And if there is is it a change both in tone and in substance? Or is it mostly a matter of of tone? And related to this? Maybe Sure, stepping back even further? How much did things really change under the Trump administration, as opposed to earlier administrations? 

 

Akshat Divatia  18:43 

Yeah. You know, anytime that we talk about how much things have changed, I think it’s important to look at where they were. And if we look back under the Trump administration, you know, that also felt like a drastic change, compared to how things were done in prior administrations, both Democrat and Republican. So, for Trump, you know, his campaign platform essentially was to protect the American worker, which was both reducing the number of legal immigrants and eliminating the h1 visa program. He wanted to institute a merit based immigration system. And, you know, so there was talk of, in some audiences, there was talk of eliminating the h1 visa program and other business friendly audiences. He had mentioned limiting visas, h1 visas to only the highest skilled workers, which translated to the highest paid workers. And then there was a question of also retribution and deterrence. You know, stop issuing visas to everyone from those countries that refuse to take back the individuals who had it emigrated unlawfully from those countries. So a way to kind of punish them, if they refuse to cooperate and take back those people. So certainly those themes resonated with the base. And to put those policies into effect to put that that plan into effect. He relied on on advisors and on data that helped, you know, make it easier to institute those changes to propel those changes. Ultimately, though, what ended up happening is that, you know, no new immigration laws were passed. And so everything, all the changes that came about were through administrative action. So there were, you know, expansive executive orders, for instance, the by American higher American order Baja, which just, you know, allow the adjudicators with virtually a blank check to deny immigration benefits to deny these applications without having to fully justify, you know, what is might be an issue with a particular case. Just that, in our opinion, this is in violation of the the Baja executive order, we would see that often. There were also agency internal agency memoranda. These were crafted to remove deference to rescind deference that’s given to previously approved petitions. In other words, you know, if you’re applying for an extension of status, then the prior petition that gave you that status, carries weight. And instead of that the, the agency memoranda said no, we’re not going to give any deference to prior petitions. Every time you file a petition, any petition, including an amendment, including an extension, we’re going to review it de novo as if it’s been submitted the first time. And it resulted in a lot of, you know, crazy decisions and impact on on foreign nationals, many individuals from India and China who are stuck in visa backlogs. And that’s because there’s a per country cap on these on these visas. And because of the the demand for visas from those countries, there’s there’s a huge backlog which which runs yours. And individuals in the meantime, can extend their h1 visa status remain in the US until they get a green card. And for those individuals, there was, you know, there were decisions where they may have had extensions approved over the last seven years. But then all of a sudden, they would be stuck with a denial, because no deference was given to those prior petitions and things were being renewed de novo. And, in addition to that the administration had also imposed began to impose in person interview requirement for all employment based Green Card cases. And, and that was something very novel, it was created. But it achieved the end result, which was to frustrate the system to slow things down. You know, it’s like constructive eviction, where a landlord doesn’t evict you, but instead locks you out turns off, if he doesn’t deliver the mail, you know, makes you fed up with the whole process with the with your living arrangement, that you say, You know what, this is not worth it. I’m out of here. And that was essentially the objective. And it weren’t these in person interview requirements, not only slowed things down for employment based immigrants. So as context prior to that, you know, these employment based cases would be adjudicated by a service center. You know, the employers would have gone through extreme vetting and and documented the eligibility done the labor market test, I mean, gone through a lot of a lot of different requirements satisfied them. And then the end result is that the green card would have been mailed to the applicant. Instead by imposing the in person interview requirement prior to the issuance of the green card. What resulted was that the local offices were overwhelmed with these interviews, and it slowed things down also for family immigrants, marriage based applicants, those who are applying for naturalization. Just to give you an example in the Seattle area, the processing time for a citizenship or naturalization application was typically about four months four to six months max and when these in person interview requirement was imposed for employment cases, that processing time ballooned to about 18 months, so So most certainly it had a very negative impact across the board. The administration had also tried controversial rulemaking where they did not necessarily follow the Administrative Procedures Act, they ended up relying on faulty data. And at the conclusion of those four years, by that time, many of these proposed rules were defeated in court. So, so under Trump, it made it, you know, very difficult for businesses and for individuals to rely and consider the immigration process predictable. And that unpredictability essentially led to many of these foreign nationals, as I’ve mentioned before, going to Canada or to other countries. Now, under Biden, you know, it was easy for him to come in, and at least his platform was that I’m not going to do what the other guy did. The idea also was to, to remove some of these institutional barriers, not only rescind the executive orders, but also reward entrepreneurship. I think that’s been that that was a key aspect of the Biden platform. Under his proposal, there were significant advancements for entrepreneurs, to immigrant entrepreneurs to set up their own companies and get visas as a result of that incubation. There was also a desire to, you know, support legislation that that removed caps, removed spouses and children from per country caps. And in this, I think, is important, because, as I mentioned, you know, citizens of India and China, people born in India and China, when they are going through the immigrant process, they have to wait significantly longer than their neighbors, you know, the union, Chinese workers are essentially penalized, because American employers tend to look for them when filling positions. And that’s not really fair. And not only that, but you know, if you have a family, the spouse and children are also counted against the, you know, the per country cap. So removing that removing spouses and children from that equation. That is something that that was part of the Biden proposal. And to back up, you know, his proposal, he essentially turned to people who were, you know, of immigrant backgrounds, and exceptional bureaucrats. He appointed the first immigrant and Latino Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, who was a former Deputy Secretary for DHS. During the Obama administration. He was also the former director of the USCIS. So he had the institutional knowledge and the immigrant background to say, look, the tone is going to be different. We are going to spend time resources and train workers within the agencies. So once Biden took office, you know, he had promised that he would take certain actions on his first day in office. And and he lived up to that he rescinded the travel bans that were in place at that time. And on day one, he sent an immigration bill to Congress, the US Citizenship Act of 2021, sponsored by Bob Menendez from New Jersey and Linda Sanchez from California. And that legislation included provisions to reduce lengthy visa backlogs to improve protections for immigrant whistleblowers allowed for, you know, STEM graduates, doctoral STEM graduates from US universities, to not be counted against the per country limits. And there were a lot of other proposals that were common sense proposals that were designed to make the system less frustrating, and to reward people for having immigrated lawfully. But I think the big problem that the Biden administration has faced is that, you know, the pandemic has not gone away, and then the momentum has waned. You know, that delta variant certainly had a huge impact. USCIS offices were closed consular posts read you mentioned, you know, from your prior experience as a consular officer. What we heard from other consular officers is that, you know, during the pandemic, they didn’t have the flexibility of working from home because they were, you know, working on sensitive material. They did not have, you know, the security built in security in the VPN to be able to review these applications from home. So they were stuck with going in. And if the countries in which they were had restrictions, then that meant that The offices were closed, and the cases were just piling up and sitting there. Of course, the political polarization has impacted the Biden administration as well, you know, the battle not only between Republicans and Democrats, but also within the party between the moderate and progressive Democrats. The the the battle between, you know, doing things for legal immigrants versus doing things for those who are here unlawfully. That is also, you know, reason for paralysis, if you will. So I describe what has happened under the Biden administration as marching in place, you know, there was a lot of desire to to undo things and, you know, bring about meaningful changes, but because of both the political situation and the pandemic, that has not really called come about as we as we thought it would. So for, you know, immigration practitioners, I think what we’re relying on a lot more is litigation, you know, just just running up to a parent and complaining about a sibling. That’s essentially the practice that we have to engage in. You know, look, we filed this, X days ago, it’s been pending well beyond the reasonable time, you know, we asked for the court to step in and help with this particular adjudication. And that has resulted in in cases being reviewed, we also rely on contacting Congress persons, to see if they can move things along that might be stuck somewhere. And, and, you know, many of these provisions under Trump that were not already dead. By the time that Biden took office, additional litigation has come about that has, that has sped things along, force the USCIS to adjudicate unused visas. So, you know, the the moral here is that as immigration lawyers, we cannot just sit there we are advocates in that true sense of the word. And we want to be able to use any and all means possible to make sure that our client is not the one without a chair when the when the music stops. 

 

Jonathan Bench  32:25 

Love to hear about your experiences in Argentina and Spain. I’ve heard a few stories from time to time, but I’m very interested in what you found. You learned the languages are the language, Spanish and probably different dialects or different word choices? Can you tell a little bit about your time there? 

 

Akshat Divatia  32:44 

Yeah, those were, those were both wonderful formative experiences. For me. I first went to Barcelona while I was in college, on a semester long study abroad, I lived with a host family there. And it’s only a slight exaggeration, when I say that I learned more in my first six days there than I did in six years between between high school and college in the US. You know, living with a host family most definitely helped me, the family was, you know, insistent that I speak the language. So much so that at times, we would not begin eating at the dinner table, unless I can talk about how my day was, and, you know, see what I’m going to be eating. So I learned, I learned real quick, it was also my first time in Europe, and I was smitten, you know, I, for me, the Mediterranean culture mixes elements of both the East and the West. My upbringing in the east, but my immigration to the west, you know, I value both the East and the West. And and those experiences that I’ve had in the Mediterranean in Barcelona, in Spain, what I found was that the culture was at similarities with with the Eastern cultures because of the deep bonds that exists both within and between families, neighbors and friends. And then also because the societies were less mobile, less nomadic, you know, in the US, it’s quite common for families to move, you know, at the drop of a dime, if you will, but but both in Spain and in in, in India, where I grew up, that was not the case. So that lack of mobility, or the lack of just picking up and moving does build stronger, deeper relationships. But the Mediterranean also, to me represented the West in many ways because of the progressiveness that I observed, both in the mentality of the people and the institutions at large. For example, I could never imagine, you know, living at home with my parents as a teenager in India and being able to regularly stay out until the wee hours of the morning with my friends but but that was the case in Spain. In fact, my host mother, who was an elderly woman, had no problem, you know, unlocking the door when I would get back in the early hours of the morning. So, so it was a very rich, enlightening experience for me. You know, after the Spain experience, I was bitten by the travel bug. And then a few years later, I got the chance to be in bonus situs, Argentina, for a year long Rotary Foundation ambassadorial scholarship. So this was kind of like serving as a student ambassador, taking courses. And the most important premise of that particular scholarship was that I had to give presentations at various rotary clubs, and metropolitan Botha ciders, if you’ve been there, you know, it’s a sprawling city. And there are more than 40 rotary clubs in the area. So my calendar was pretty much booked. And virtually every other weekend or every weekend, I would, I would be invited to speak at different Rotary Clubs. And, and I came back with a very, very strong command of Spanish, I felt more comfortable in Spanish, at one point than I did in English. In for them, you know, it was also a very culturally enriching experience. Here, they had somebody who had lived in India was I was living in the US had studied in Spain, and happened to be in in Argentina. So it was a mutually enriching opportunity. And, and I hold that particular experience very fondly in both Spain and Argentina. While I was there, I got the opportunity to travel in not in South America, I traveled through i Brazil, Chile. So, you know, came to the realization as most of us who have traveled and lived abroad, the more you travel, the more you realize just how much remains to be seen. So those experiences were, you know, they’ve left a deep influence in me and in how I view the world. 

 

Fred Rocafort  37:16 

Actually, the fact remains that there’s so much more that that we wanted to talk about, and we’ll we’ll we’ll just have to have you back on at some point to, to continue talking about the topics that we’ve discussed, and the ones that are still on our list. But before we let you go, we’d like to ask you for any recommendations you might have for our listeners. 

 

Akshat Divatia  37:41 

Yeah. So you know, I have a preference for nonfiction for business for biographies. I like to read but increasingly, I rely on audiobooks through my Libby app, highly recommend that app, which allows users to borrow books from their local libraries for 21 days at a time. You know, my favorites are Malcolm Gladwell. You all know a Harare, Angela Duckworth. I really enjoy reading those authors. But the recommendation that I that I have, but I’m currently reading, and I really find it fascinating, is a book by an American Baron Meyer, who is a professor at INSEAD in France, and it’s called the Culture Map. And it’s a look at how people from different cultures communicate and consider ideas at work. And, you know, what I’m seeing from that particular book is that national culture and the upbringing, play a deeper, perhaps more influential role in communication, then does organizational culture. And she goes on to list various criteria, communicate, communication, evaluation, leadership, decision making, you know, how are the the how’s that? How are the styles different, depending on where you were born and where you were raised. So I highly recommend that book I don’t want to give away it’s its premise, but it’s really a fascinating look, and especially where I deal with clients from all over the world. It’s really interesting and informational for me to see how, how how people communicate, and to read between the lines. 

 

Fred Rocafort  39:30 

Thank you for that. That sounds like a fascinating read that I’ll have to check out. Jonathan seems like you also have a fascinating read for us this week. 

 

Jonathan Bench  39:40 

I do this is a it’s a long form article, but not extremely long. Probably knock it out in 15 minutes or so. And it’s by Gregor McQueen. The article is called weighing the pros and cons of doing business in sheeting, pings China. And this article is about seven or eight months old now. From early 2021, but the principles are still salient and in, in good business fashion. There are a lot of great call outs, including at the end kind of a scenario overviews showing how strong is China right now, whereas it made good advancements. And where’s it? Where’s it flagging behind the US? It’s just a nice summary. If if you’re like me from time to time, and you wonder, what are smart people saying about the current state of China? And is it worth doing business there? This is a great article for an executive team to read, and sit back and ponder, where are we now with respect to China? What do we think China is going to be doing in the next five to 10 years? And do we want to be there? And if we want to be there, what’s the right way to be there? So weighing the pros and cons of doing business in Xi Jinping is China. Fred, what do you have for us today? 

 

Fred Rocafort  40:48 

I’d like to recommend a YouTube channel today called chief McCoy. The content producer here is a Filipino chief engineer on board cargo ships. And this is a world that was at the same time intriguing to me. But at the same time, one where there’s just not a lot of information out there especially this kind of audio visual content that allows you to to see firsthand what’s what’s happening. So if you have any interest at all in the world of shipping, all of the work that goes into keeping this the these ships running, the logistics involved and again, if you have any interest in that world, the more one to one to see the world of cargo shipping from from the inside checkout chief McCoy’s channel. On that notes, I’d like to thank X shot for joining us on the podcast. It’s been a real pleasure. 

 

Akshat Divatia  41:52 

Thank you, Fred. Thank you, Jonathan. So much for having me on. It’s a privilege. 

 

Jonathan Bench  42:00 

Global Law and Business is a production of Harris Sliwoski. The team includes Madeline Williams and Makayla Moore. The music is composed by Steven Schmidt. If you like the show, subscribe on iTunes and leave us a review there. We’d like to hear what you think of the show and it helps new listeners find us. Tune in next week for another episode. We’ll see you then.