This article is copied from Forbes. I am a proponent of the Start Up Visa Act for many reasons and I concur with Mr. Gary Shapiro, the author of the below article.
To Create Jobs, Reform U.S. Visa Laws
What do Intel, eBay, Google and Yahoo! all have in common? Aside from being four of the most successful U.S. companies, they were all started by immigrants. Consider the case of Andrew Grove, who at age 20 escaped Communist Poland and immigrated to America, where he received his education and started Intel. Today, Intel is the world’s largest computer chip maker in the world, employing some 85,000 people.
Now, what if after receiving his Ph.D. from Berkeley, Grove had been forced to leave the United States because of something as simple as an expired visa? Which welcoming country would now be able to boast Intel as one of its crown-jewel companies, whose innovations have revolutionized the world? Thankfully, Intel is a U.S. company because we let Grove accomplish his dreams right here in America.
As amazing as it is, Grove’s story also is anything but unique. As I recount in my recent book, “The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream,” a 2009 study from the Kauffman Foundation found that in a quarter of the U.S. science and technology companies founded between 1995 and 2005, the chief executive or lead technologist was an immigrant. In 2005, the study notes, these companies generated $52 billion in revenue and employed 450,000 people.
The Kauffman study confirms what is already common knowledge among America’s entrepreneurial class – educated immigrants are life-blood for our innovation economy. So, it would seem like a matter of basic economic policy that the United States would do all it could to pack our country with as many of these foreign-born entrepreneurs as possible. But in fact, the reality is much different.
There are nearly 1.2 million educated and skilled professionals waiting in line to gain permanent-resident status to the United States. But U.S. policy is to dole out around 120,000 visas per year for skilled immigrants, and no more than 7 percent of these visas can go to any given country. As the Kauffman study noted, between 1995 and 2005 Indian immigrants accounted for 26 percent of the Silicon Valley startups founded in this period, which was more than the next four groups (Britain, China, Taiwan and Japan) combined.
More maddening, of 568,000 foreign students who studied in the United States in 2008, 248,000 were enrolled in science and engineering fields. Yet after these bright, hard-working students receive their degree, we make it almost impossible for them to stay. What do they do? They leave and create our competition abroad.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported on a botched State Department lottery in which some 22,000 foreign applicants were informed that they had won a chance for a U.S. resident visa only to have it later retracted due to a computer glitch. One of the applicants quoted in the story holds a Master’s degree in information technology management from Harvard, and has been trying to get a visa for 10 years. Does that make any sense at all?
The American innovation rocket ship, which has taken us so high, has been fueled by the constant flow of the brightest, most entrepreneurial immigrants from around the world. We used to welcome these immigrants but changed our attitude and our policies after September 11, 2001. A 2010 Small Business Administration report noted that the security measures enacted following the attacks, while necessary in some regards, “nevertheless affected entrepreneurship in the United States to some extent by controlling the flow of skilled workers into the country.”
But the pendulum seems to be swinging back, as more of our national leaders are beginning to realize that we must quickly reform our immigration laws to propel our innovation economy forward. In fact, last week, the House Republican Technology Working Group released its list of top technology concerns and under the banner of “Ensuring American Access to the Best Workers,” said it would “examine current visa and immigration laws to make sure we attract and retain the best and brightest minds from around the world.”
Meanwhile, in the Senate, John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) have introduced the Startup Visa Act of 2011, which would reform our visa laws to take the entrepreneurial spirit of immigrants into account. Essentially, the bill would move to the front of the visa line any immigrant with a business idea and proof of investor interest. After two years, their business must have created 5 new jobs and raised not less than $500,000 in additional capital investment or generate not less than $500,000 in revenue.
These are sound, innovative ideas that demand urgent attention. With Republicans, Democrats, common sense and a desire to create jobs and grow the economy we have a real chance to change our counter-productive visa laws and give our kids a better more prosperous nation.
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association and the author of the New York Times Bestseller, “The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream.”