According to The “New American” Fortune 500 report published by the Partnership for a New American Economy, over 40 percent of the 2010 Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children. Companies like Colgate-Palmolive, Pfizer, Google, Sara Lee and Procter & Gamble—all household American brands—together employ more than 10 million people worldwide.
Creating a friendly environment for entrepreneurs, in this case immigrant entrepreneurs, is a way to promote innovation, growth, and new businesses. Last September, Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg, long-time supporter of comprehensive immigration reform, stressed the economic importance of having a welcoming visa system that attracts and retains entrepreneurs. Making reference to the other English-speaking countries, Mayor Bloomberg said competing nations “have visa programs designed to attract entrepreneurs who come to create jobs. All these countries know that smart visa policies alone can’t guarantee that their economies will successfully weather every economic storm. But they do know that there’s no chance they’ll stay competitive unless they can attract top talent from around the world, and that certainly goes for the United States.”
Unfortunately, entrepreneurs coming to the U.S. to take advantage of the business infrastructure face several challenges in getting an appropriate visa to stay in the country, invest, and start a company. The most common visas are treaty investor (E-2), intracompany transferee (L1-A), temporary professional worker (H1-B) and immigrant investor (EB-5) or “one million dollar visa.” The last requires the investor to invest $1 million in the U.S. in order to get a green card. In many cases, the visa application processes can take several years and end up being quite expensive (around $20,000), all of which discourages innovators and redirect them to other countries.
Some legislators have proposed bills that attempt to simplify the visa program’s complexities. Jared Polis introduced the Employment Benefit Act (HR4259) in 2009, which aims to reform the “$1 million dollar visa” and create a Startup Visa in order to make it easier for immigrant entrepreneurs to start a business in the US. This bill was complemented by the Startup Visa Act of 2010 authored by senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN). One year later, Kerry, Lugar and Mark Udall (D-CO) introduced the revised Startup Visa Act of 2011 (HR1114) which would give a two-year visa to immigrant entrepreneurs who get a U.S. investor to invest $100,000 or more in their startup (down from the original $1 million). Additionally, students with advanced degrees and H1-Bs would be included in the pool of potential applicants.
The Startup Visa Movement was founded in 2010 by a number of investors and entrepreneurs to lobby Congress to pass the Startup Visa Act. Now consisting of over 100 America venture capitalists and investors, the Startup Movement says the bill will “make it easier for entrepreneurs to come to the U.S., start new businesses, and most importantly create more jobs.”
While domestic unemployment remains around 9 percent, entrepreneurs across the globe are awaiting revised visa legislation to be able to come to the U.S., start their business and create jobs. It may be time the U.S. recognized the opportunity at its doorstep.
Lina Salazar works in the policy department at Americas Society/Council of the Americas.
