This International Entrepreneur Rule is the so-called "startup visa" that was introduced in 2016. It was practically tailormade for founders of YC companies.
Founders would qualify for a period of several years simply based on investment raised and amount of ownership in the company. Traditional visas are more oriented towards big corporations' needs and are not so easy to bend to fit startups (or so I hear -- I'm no sort of lawyer).
Sad to see it killed off, even though the writing was on the wall ever since November 2016.
US government 101:
immigration laws are passed by Congress
Immigration laws should be implemented by the executive (the president and federal agencies) using federal policies
This rule was an attempt to make a new law just by implementing a policy, so the new administration can easily rescind it. Whereas say, Obamacare was a law, so can only be overturned by another successful vote in Congress, which is a lot harder.
I support the idea of this policy to encourage skilled immigration, but it should actually be passed by Congress.
It's also particularly weird that Obama enacted it 2 days before he left office. Presumably it didn't take 8 years for him to decide it was a good idea, maybe he was holding out hope on passing it through Congress the real way, but he wasn't shy about setting policy via EO before, i.e. DACA. The only real motivation I can see for doing something 2 days before you leave office that's easily undone by the next guy is that it forces the next guy to actually undo it, which might make him look bad.
The rule was announced in August 2016 with an initial comment period and no apparent rush. They were probably expecting that a Clinton administration would implement it at their own pace during 2017.
After the election the rule was seemingly fast-tracked, perhaps in the hope that the Trump administration would have bigger fish to fry.
Well, the new administration wasn't exactly shy in implementing their own agenda of immigration policy through executive orders so it is a bit rich and hypocrite to turn a blind eye there and revert policies implemented in a similar manner by the previous administration.
I love the startup eco-system of the US, and as someone fluent in English, and entrepreneurial, I would love to emigrate to the US with my startup -- but goddamit is it getting harder every single day.
The main thing that strikes me is that the assumption if we do not allow these so called "entrepreneurs" in then we would have lost out on the "half" of >$1B companies founded by them. Sometimes opportunities are ripe and if one entrepreneur doesnt pick it, another will. That entrepreneur could be current legal resident of the US, rather than a foreign one.
I personally prefer more open borders, but the fallacy in the article also bothers me.
Another thing the article doesn't mention at all: if it is true that by not letting these entrepreneurs in we're missing out on half of >$1B companies then we should expect some of the countries these entrepreneurs are leaving to be the sites of these companies instead. I suspect we'll see a mix of both, some companies will be founded by a different founder with a different visa status, some will be founded by the same founder, but in a different place. Neither of these is necessarily a bad thing, granted the US might be missing out on some good founders, and thus some good jobs and some tax revenue. So from a purely "America First" we're missing out... but our government does many ostensibly benevolent things to help other countries, many of them, it's very dubious whether or not they actually help. But not brain draining everyone's entrepreneurs might actually be some effective benevolence. It's ironic that it comes from an administration whose slogan is "America First."
Pro-immigration policies are essentially stealing the best and brightest from all corners of the world and moving them here.
Why? In many cases they would be dramatically more effective in their country of origin. Take IIT in India, which is India’s version of Harvard. Over 50% of those students go abroad a year after graduating. How can that be good for India?
Maybe it’s not good for India, but most likely it’s good for those graduates. I doubt any of them is kidnapped, most certainly they emmigrate on their own volition. Pursuit of happiness is a thing ...
You're assuming that $1B opportunities are ripe for picking, but only by companies incorporated in the state of Delaware and headquartered somewhere near Sand Hill Road.
The SV ecosystem has given these forms of companies a big boost for a long time. No doubt about that.
Well, as jdoliner says, those companies might be started in other, more entrepreneur-friendly country like Chile or France or maybe China instead (no idea about the latter's entrepreneur-friendliness though, but I do know about Chile's).
I heard from a friend that the bureaucratic cost of starting/registering any software business in France was €50,000 and up. Add to that GDPR compliance, etc. I do not think that France is entrepreneur friendly.
the article seems to assume that there is no possible alternative for fostering entrepreneurialism and new company formation in the US, that once this source of entrepreneurs is taken away from the overall pool, there can be no other way to augment it
Absolutely no idea why Stephen Miller and others in the Trump Whitehouse are preoccupied with stifling all forms of immigration into the United States.
If your main argument is that immigration is bringing crime (it isn't) and flooding the market with low skill labor (which... is consistent with our history) I don't see how you can go after a niche like this, which is both low volume and high skill and actually creates middle-class jobs for Americans.
Is there a sentiment that native-born entrepreneurs are losing out on VC cash due to immigration?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-bannon-flattered...
“When two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think . . . ” Bannon said, not finishing the sentence. “A country is more than an economy. We’re a civic society.”
Churches themselves are divided the same way, rich and poor churches, white and black churches. The rich churches are pro-science bastions of professionalism with engineers, lawyers, and doctors.
Then make us understand how can one pick up on the country (and a whole continent) of origin of SV founders and not be racist, what is the non-racist reason to consider the country of origin distinction relevant in a discussion about SV founders?
And why mention the bit about "civic society", what has that anything to do with the country/continent of origin?
That quote pretty much sums it up. Under Obama democrats abandoned their stance on individual freedom and instead turned to extreme leftism. Conservatives as a response abandoned their fiscal and economic conservatism and instead turned to identity politics of old white people. American society is deeply divided at the moment and Indians and Chinese immigrants and the collateral damage.
Could you please stop posting political-ideological-national-racial-battle-style comments to HN? That is the opposite of what this site is for, and you've been doing it a lot lately. I appreciate that you have remained personally civil, and am sure that you don't intend to harm the community, but that's the effect it has in practice.
I agree with your first sentence and think your second sentence is incredibly optimistic. There are extremely few GOP candidates running in 2018 midterms who have explicitly run away from Trump - the incumbents that were outspoken against Trump decided not to run again or cannot run again.
In the meantime permanently damaging the US’ reputation as the place to be. Those drops in foreign university enrollment are only going to get worse with this rescission.
His supporters don’t care about trivial things like the international standing of our nation. He’s playing to his base. That’s how he gets his second term.
There was a profile on Stephen Miller just posted today.
He unfriended kids in high school when he realized that they were not white. In some ways it's quite complimentary of his skills in debating/trolling with many examples over the years including during the interview for the profile.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/05/stephen...
> Drafted two days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, the rule-making was seen by many Republicans as an example of executive office overreach.
> “Parole is supposed to be reserved for short term and emergency purposes,” said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative think tank with ties to the current administration. “Previous administrations have pushed the envelope on parole, and the Obama administration kicked right through the envelope and claimed that the existence of the parole authority meant that the president could admit anyone.”
You are missing the primary directive behind most of the current administration's actions - undo as much as possible what the previous administration did.
Racism! They are just upset that Indians, Chinese, Koreans are doing better and the usual white control of everything is rapidly declining. The general young white population in USA itself is becoming more liberal and accepting of others. This hurts identity politics of conservatives.
Indian-American for example are ideal immigrants. They have lowest crime rates, very good assimilation, 0 terrorist threat, high income levels and even their kids are high achievers. Ideally USA should be actively bringing young and bright Indians to USA and offer them citizenship. Instead they have to wait over 3 decades to get a green card.
Calling a group of people racist and then generalizing all Indian Americans as being ideal immigrants is about as contradictory as you can get in one argument
As an Indian person on H1B I welcome this move. This was a loophole for rich and corrupt in India used to buy their way into American citizenship. Around 500K Indians are waiting for decades to get their green card. It would be much better to flush the queue and offer them green-cards so they could start their business in USA.
Although some folks may be abusing it, it is far too less and not the main driver for longer green card queue. The reason for the longer queue is the fact that large number of EB-3s are jumping into EB-2 as they age their stay in US past 6 years, keeping their priority date same.
Rich entrepreneurs hire fancy immigration attorneys and go to the front of the line well before 5 years. Impact to well funded entrepreneurs will be minimal and those it does effect will take up residence in Toronto/Vancoover/MexicoCity.
Founders would qualify for a period of several years simply based on investment raised and amount of ownership in the company. Traditional visas are more oriented towards big corporations' needs and are not so easy to bend to fit startups (or so I hear -- I'm no sort of lawyer).
Sad to see it killed off, even though the writing was on the wall ever since November 2016.