Fraudwa: The Startup Visa And Why The Xenophobes Need To Go Back Into Their Caves

[swaroop]

Every time I publish a research paper on immigration or write an article for BusinessWeek or TechCrunch, the xenophobes rush out of their caves to launch mindless attacks. They fill the comment sections with bile, send me nasty emails and sometimes threaten to do me harm. I was convinced that my last BusinessWeek column on the Startup visa presented such a compelling argument that even these poor souls would support it.

After all, this visa is about creating American jobs and moving innovation here which would otherwise happen in other countries. We can boost the economy without any cost to taxpayers. It’s not about admitting H-1B visa holders who sometimes make Americans compete for high-paying jobs, but bringing in entrepreneurs who expand the pie for everyone. Not only do the Democrats support this, but so do the Republicans (their thought leader, Newt Gingrich blogged about my previous TechCrunch post on immigration and his staff told me that he was a supporter of the startup visa). So this seems like a no-brainer.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/05/the-startup-visa-and-why-the-xenophobes-need-to-go-back-into-their-caves/

[JDPriestly]

1. The problem with business visas is that a lot of people cheat to get them.

It's relatively easy for a family to pool its resources to get a visa for one of its members and then, of course, necessarily, return the resources to their actual owners once the government has been adequately hoodwinked. And guess what, instead of a new business, we have a closed business and one more jobless person.