The Startup Case For Immigration Reform

Large and small businesses are lining up behind an immigration policy that would make it easier for entrepreneurs and high-tech professionals to come or stay in the United States. Congress did not move forward on comprehensive immigration reform before the midterm election. It has also failed to pass several of the more specific immigration proposals made in recent years. One of these, the DREAM Act, would have allowed alien students who graduate from college or served for two years in the military to stay in the US. Another, the Startup Visa Act, sought to give a visa to anyone who’s received $1 million in equity investment in their company and would create 10 US jobs.

Expect a concerted push to reverse what’s seen as a brain drain from big business and the venture capital industry. Jim Turley, the CEO of Ernst and Young who serves on Obama’s National Export Council, advocates a policy of what he calls “staple diplomacy.” Explaining it he said: “Whenever there’s a student from anywhere in the world who is walking across the stage from a leading university getting his or her PhD or masters we should staple a visa there to him or her and say you’re welcome to stay.”

Immigration proponents cite studies by Duke Professor Vivek Wadha, who determined that immigrants created a quarter of all technology and engineering firms founded in the U.S. between 1995 and 2005. Foreign-born nationals residing in this country were part of nearly one-quarter of patents filed in 2006.

Right now entrepreneurs and businesses have two options to bring highly skilled international residents into the US: the EB-5 visa and the H1B visa. With the EB-5 visa, immigrant investors can obtain a green card if they invest $1 million into a new or existing business and create at least 10 jobs. Less than half of last year’s 10,000 EB-5 slots were filled. Eleanor Pelty, the President of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and a partner at Morgan Lewis in Washington says foreign nationals are wary of using these visas to start a new business because if a business runs into trouble and the company doesn’t employ 10 workers two years later, the investor will lose his or her provisional visa. “It’s a dicey proposition because you have to use your own money or secure it with your own assets and you might not get a visa at the end of it anyway,” she says.

Source: Forbes

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