This week, President Obama will turn his focus from budget sequestration to immigration. A new Kauffman Foundation report released last week argues that making 75,000 Startup Visas available for current holders of H-1B and F-1 visas who start companies could create as much as 1.6 million U.S. jobs in the next 10 years. Will Washington act or, if they cannot agree, throw the baby out with the bath water?
I have long argued alongside smarter Americans than me that we need immigration policies to release pent-up entrepreneurial activity among foreign-born people in the United States, who have in the past accounted for a quarter of all successful high-tech startups in the country. More recently, in 2011, 24 of the top 50 venture-capital-backed companies in 2011 were founded or co-founded by immigrants, according to the National Foundation for American Policy. The pressure on policymakers has increased in this regard from many sectors because of the rapid pace of improvement in other nations’ startup ecosystems which lure startup entrepreneurs and their investors.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Measuring the Impact of a Startup Visa - Entrepreneurship.org
