You might assume that even the biggest immigrant bashers would welcome bright young people to the US with proven records as entrepreneurs. That was the thinking of the Obama administration. Shortly before president Barack Obama left the White House he created by executive order the “international entrepreneur rule”, which laid out a way for immigrant entrepreneurs to legally stay in the US to start or grow new companies. But the Trump administration, in a characteristically knee-jerk act of hostility towards immigration in almost any form, shelved the rule.
To qualify in terms of the rule, the immigrant entrepreneur must show an ownership stake of at least 10% in the company being created, as well as $250,000 in documented funding from a qualified investor or $100,000 from a government award or grant. The minimum parole period is 30 months. If the business meets certain other benchmarks, such as creating at least five jobs and achieving $500,000 in annual revenue, the parole can be extended by another 30 months.
Those are tough benchmarks to hit, which should allay the concerns of those who worry the entire programme is just a sneaky way to open the floodgates of immigration. It would seem to satisfy the demand of Republicans that immigrants enter our country “the right way”.
The notion that immigrant entrepreneurs take jobs from Americans — rather than help create jobs for all of us — is factually baseless. Tell it to celebrity entrepreneur Elon Musk, who is from SA. Tell it to Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington, who is from Greece. Tell it to Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal and the first outside investor in Facebook, who is from Germany.
On February 5 a coalition of 16 organisations representing start-ups and technology fields sent a letter to President Joe Biden’s homeland security secretary Alejandro Majorkas asking him to push forward with the rule. “Immigrant entrepreneurs have made incredible contributions to the US economy, including by founding both companies with an approved Covid-19 vaccine — Moderna and Pfizer,” said National Venture Capital Association president Bobby Franklin.
That might be the most visceral, if purely anecdotal, argument for revitalising the international entrepreneur rule. Those Covid-19 vaccinations most of us can’t wait to get? Entrepreneurial immigrants to America made them possible. /Chicago, February 24
Chicago Sun-Times
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