Innovation Advocates Call for Immigration Reform
Foreign-born inventors and entrepreneurs play a vital role in the U.S. innovation economy, yet these individuals face many obstacles if they wish to remain in the country. Last year, more than three-quarters of all patents at the top ten patent-producing universities had at least one foreign-born inventor, according to report from the Partnership for a New American Economy. The report lays out several policy changes that could help the country retain more foreign-born innovators trained at U.S. universities and is the latest in a series of publications that have emphasized the importance of immigrants in the high-tech economy.
The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on Arizona's SB 1070 immigration act and the White House's decision to help undocumented youths obtain work visas has brought immigration reform back into the national spotlight. With immigration on the agenda, the Partnership for a New American Economy report is a timely exploration of the role foreign-born researchers play in the innovation economy and the difficulties they face in remaining in the country. The group consists of 450 U.S. mayors and business leaders, including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Boeing CEO and President Jim McNerney. Along with the release of the report, a letter signed by 90 American university presidents was submitted to President Obama and Congress calling for a new green card program that would ensure top international graduates could stay in the U.S..
Foreign-born inventors play an outsized role in some of the industries that are most vital to the U.S. high-tech economy. Last year, more than 75 percent of all patents in semiconductor device manufacturing, information technology, pulse or digital communications, pharmaceutical drugs or drug compounds and optics had at least one foreign-born co-inventor, according to the report. Many of those inventors were student, postdoctoral fellows or staff researchers — the groups most likely to face significant visa hurdles. Foreign-born students and researchers must often rely on the limited supply of H-1B visas for temporary, highly-skilled workers. In 2012, the cap on H-1B visas was reached in less than three months.
The authors project that by 2018 the U.S. will face a shortfall of 230,000 qualified advanced-degree workers. This shortfall can only be addressed through a significant overhaul of the immigration system with a focus on retaining highly-skilled students, researchers and entrepreneurs, according to the report.
The group provides three no-cost policy changes that the federal government could employ to improve the immigration system. Recommendations include:
- Issuing green cards for STEM grads, particularly for those with advanced degrees from U.S. universities;
- Creating a new startup visa for entrepreneurs, a policy that is being used in many countries to promote the creation of high-tech businesses; and,
- Raising or removing H-1B visa caps.
Read Patent Pending: How Immigrants are Reinventing the American Economy at: http://www.renewoureconomy.org/patent-pending.
This week, TechNet, a network of technology CEOs, released a letter signed by 346 technology companies and groups calling on Congress to eliminate the per country limit on green cards. Under current law, 140,000 green cards are awarded annually to immigrants based on their job skills, but the total number of those green cards available to natives from any one country is capped at 7 percent. The formula is not adjusted by population of the origin country or the number of applicants from that country. The signatories argue that this cap unduly limits the number of highly-skilled workers that can receive permission to remain in the U.S. and adds to the country's shortage of technology workers.
Read the letter at: http://www.technet.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Tech-Industry-Letter-in-Support-of-Repealing-the-Per-Country-Limit-JUN-27-2012.pdf.
A recent study from the Small Business Administration found that immigrants were twice as likely to start a new business in 2010 than non-immigrants. Immigrant-owned businesses were also more likely to hire a first employee, though they hired fewer total employees on average. Immigrants with graduate degrees had the highest rates of entrepreneurship.
Read Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners and their Access to Financial Capital at: http://www.sba.gov/advocacy/809/141951.
policy recommendations, entrepreneurship