status at too

high a rate.

And so the U.S. government came out in January, I think, and they said, if you're from one of these 75 countries, we're going to do a pause.

And that's the phrase that we've been using around here.

which is a pause until we, the U.S. State Department, the Trump administration, can come up with a personalized test so that the immigration officers can, in fact, determine whether the applicant who's sitting in front of the consular official is likely or unlikely to take those public benefits when they come to the United States.

So that was the state of play for the first half of the year.

And then there was a lawsuit filed in the late spring, I think.

Chris, if you were to predict what movement we're going to see in October, what would you say?

So do we have any insight into why that's happening? You know, they, we wait in line, we're finally eligible, but we can't get the appointment.

Yeah, Ed, this is, uh, I agree with you.

This has probably been the hottest issue, uh, in, in immigration, in overseas immigration o- over the last, uh, few months, which is that a number of these embassies, uh, are just taking extraordinary long time from the time the nurse or the applicant becomes documentarily qualified until such time as her appointment is actually scheduled and she is able to go through her interview.

There's probably a variety of reasons for it, none of which are very, uh, uh, great news and, and there are r- really not, uh, anything that most people can do about.

But in no particular order, we believe that those reasons, uh, include, uh, just staffing issues at all these embassies around the world, number one.

And two, uh, extremely long and deep, um, vetting processes, criminal background checks and other background checks that are just taking an extraordinarily long period of time.

And it's particularly acute in certain areas like sub-Saharan Africa, uh, where the US government is even more, uh, short-staffed than, than it, it has been in the, in, in years past.

Aren't you both on the motivational speakers list?