Technology and research are two areas driving immigration reform
While President Obama wants a comprehensive immigration bill, competing immigration bills over the past two years will result in increased capital from unexpected sources, as hundreds of venture capital firms are backing immigration proposals including:
- Securing the Talent America (STAR) Act,
- Immigration Driving Entrepreneurship in America (IDEA) Act,
- Startup Visa Act,
- American Investment and Job Creation Act
- Sustaining our Most Advanced Researchers and Technology (SMART) Jobs Act
- Startup Act 2.0,
Between 12 percent and 14 percent of Congressmen are backing these bills and this will be a big point of discussion after Obama is inaugurated, according to a recent Forbes article.
Out of 50,000 U.S. graduate school and PhD graduates per year, 17,000 go back to their homeland because no visa options allow them to stay in the US to run a company or begin engineering jobs.
Forty percent of Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. were started by immigrants or children of immigrants children and constituted $52 Billion in annual revenue at their peak, according to the article.
The StartUp Act 2.0 will route capital to private equity funds and venture capital, in that, if $250,000 with at least $100,000 is invested from American investors, it will allow foreign entrepreneurs a temporary visa to run startups in the U.S.
