Forbes
September 4, 2012
The short answer is yes; yes we should grant more highly-skilled, highly-educated immigrants green cards.
For purely selfish American reasons, the answer is yes. Highly skilled immigrants are productive, net-positive members of American society, just like highly skilled Americans. This country has a certain median production per capita, and anything that increases that median means more economic growth for America. More economic growth means more and better opportunities for native-born Americans.
Take Amit Aharoni as an example; Israeli-born, Stanford GSB-education, StartupChile alumnus. By November ’11, through his company Cruisewise, he had created nine jobs held by Americans in San Francisco, and had raised over $1.6M in funding. His visa rejected, Amit left for Canada, continuing to run his SF-based company from Vancouver via Skype. ABC picked up his story and boom, Amit got a visa. Amit’s Cruisewise is now up to sixteen employees in SF as the company continues to grow and prosper.
