
Why the U.S. needs a new visa for foreigners who want to start businesses here. - zugumzug
http://www.slate.com/id/2274287/
======
dustintownsend
The Startup Visa Act and Dream Act are crap. Why do we insist on building on
our broken immigration policy?

We need to make immigration simple for all immigrants. We don't need to create
more laws that require an immigrant to spent $100K in legal fees to some
lawyer to fill out paperwork.

I think YCombinator has proven that a startup doesn't need tons of funding to
get an idea going.

The biggest problem with government is they over complicate EVERYTHING! We
need simple solutions to the problems, not another stack of laws to add to the
(literal) truck load that already exists.

We need one (1) page form that someone can fill out to get a visa. If someone
comes from Mexico (for example), they should be able to fill out this form and
get a Visa the same day. If someone flies in from Germany they too should be
able to fill out this one page form and get a visa right at the airport. There
is no reason why someone should have to have $100K in funding for a business,
another $100K for legal fees just to get in.

I think the approach should be applied to everything government does.
Simplify, Reduce, Eliminate.

Another good example is paperwork to start a business. I should be able to
fill out a simple form and be able to have a business up and running (Legally)
in any city/state in the US - the same day I fill out the form. I don't
understand why places like New York City make these kinds of things so
difficult. It takes MONTHS to get a business LEGALLY up and running in a major
city like New York, but that same business can be LEGALLY up and running in 1
day in Hong Kong.

~~~
yardie
I can't agree more. There are already visas that cover every letter of the
alphabet and several subclasses. We don't need more visas we need competent
immigration reform.

Also, no one has been able to explain to me how someone in another country
needs a visa for an idea they're working on. If the country they are from is
hostile to startups isn't that something that should be taken up in there. I
don't take issue with those that wan't a startup visa to be created. I take
issue with the reasons given of why it should exist at all.

------
swombat
I don't understand the funding requirements... Take someone like patio11,
who's running a profitable business but not making a killing with it yet. Why
not let him immigrate to the US, and run his business (and pay his taxes)
there?

And what about someone who ran and sold a successful business in, say,
Germany, and decides they would like to live in the Valley for a while. Let's
say that person has a couple of hundred thousand dollars of wealth, is a
proven bootstrapping entrepreneur, and wants to move to the Valley and
bootstrap the next Facebook... Why stop them at the border?

Many valuable people want to move to the US, but by making it so damn
difficult, the US misses out on enormous amounts of top talent.

Why not, instead, make immigration a straightforward process for anyone with
some set of criteria, e.g. recognised science education or other degree from a
top university, or track record of entrepreneurship, all of that with good
credit score and no debt ... it makes sense to have entry requirements, but
why are they so arbitrary?

~~~
patio11
It's downright quirky that I can get a visa to do it from Japan, a country
which, ahem, has not historically been known for its welcoming embrace of
foreigners. (Long story short: my previous employers know how the game is
played, and _keeping_ a status of residence once you have it is pretty
trivial: pay taxes, file forms in a timely fashion, and don't get arrested.)

~~~
w1ntermute
Isn't that similar to having a green card in the US? I guess the problem is
the difficulty of getting one in the first place.

~~~
patio11
A green card is equivalent to Japanese permanent residence, which I don't
have. (I would theoretically have been able to apply for it six months prior
to leaving the day job, which would result in me getting it about a week prior
to leaving the job, but the day job would have had to go to bat for me to get
it and I thought telling them to go to bat then quitting would be
discourteous. My odds of permanent residence prior to marrying a Japanese
woman now are exactly equivalent to my odds of being featured on the front
page of the Japanese economic newspaper, since any success in my business
sufficient to justify one would justify the other.)

------
tomjen3
Hopefully that won't pass.

If you have to get 250k under that law (versus 500k-million under the already
existing immigration law) then it isn't going to help startups at all, the
only thing it is going to do is to prevent a _real_ startup visa law from ever
being passed.

A real startup law would not put capital requirements on the company but would
require its founders to be able to live of the income and to either hire
people or grow a certain amount each year, which some checks to prevent them
from being consultants.

~~~
cletus
I think you misunderstand current law.

Current law allows for investment-based immigration, meaning that if you have
a certain amount of money to invest in a business you can be granted a
conditional green card based on the idea that you'll be creating jobs.

The startup visa would allow foreign entrepreneurs to come to the US if they
could secure funding from legitimate angels and VCs.

The first situation allows foreign nationals with foreign money to establish
businesses (and residency) in the US. The second allows US residents to
establish businesses with foreign entrepreneurs, which is almost the exact
opposite of the first.

~~~
chesser
Let's say someone comes over to start a start-up.

 _Who exactly are they going to hire?_

The competition is already super tough for getting good help. The talent pool
_is_ limited, so this seems rather zero-sum. The kind of people you want
already have jobs, so this isn't creating any.

And startups are uncertain enough without adding that the CEO is here on a
temporary visa. It's going to be even tougher to hire people.

I can see it as a nice thing to do on an individual level (so people with
dreams who just weren't born here get a better shot at them), but is there a
compelling case outside of that?

The majority of startups and small businesses are completely expendable and
interchangeable as far as society is concerned; _"Most small businesses exist
to provide the owner's family with an upper-middle-class lifestyle."_

[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/dgdgw/single_vs...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/dgdgw/single_vs_cofounders_its_like_star_wars/)

I know it's great for an _individual_ to have a successful Facebook game, but
why should society care?

------
devmonk
From what I've seen so far this year in bills pushed by the House and Senate
that had provisions to assist small businesses and entrepreneurs that have
C-corps were weak at best. The originally proposed health legislation pushed
by Reid and many other Democrats would have hurt small businesses hard, so
they had to tone it down. Finally, a good bit of what I saw in Democratic
campaigning this Fall seemed nationalistic, complaining that Republicans were
sending jobs overseas, and implying that these Democratic candidates valued
Americans getting jobs over foreigners. So, someone try to change my mind and
prove to me why Reid and Kerry would be for legislation that would make it
easier for foreign entrepreneurs to be successful in the U.S.? Sure Dick Lugar
is a Republican, but this post seems to push the idea (imo) that Democrats
want to help foreigners make money and that they are pro-small business,
neither of which I have seen much evidence of recently. I don't believe
Republicans will be loads better, btw. Small businesses and entrepreneurs
aren't the most influencial lobbyists in the world, and while angels and VCs
have some pull, the only reason they are getting attention now is because
supporting small business and entrepreneurs is a politically popular idea.

------
known
Clinton successfully faced Outsourcing with Insourcing. Obama is trying to
counter Outsourcing with Protectionism.

