U.S. News and World Report
December 7, 2012
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As Congress and the president seize the bipartisan opportunity to address the legal, social, and moral components of a comprehensive immigration bill, they should include in the package high-skill visa reform so that we strengthen America’s economic competitiveness as well.
Forty percent of Fortune 500 companies in the United States were started by immigrants or the children of immigrants. From 1995 to 2005, half of Silicon Valley startups had an immigrant founder and in 2005 alone those businesses did $52 billion in sales creating more than 400,000 jobs. Iconic American companies that built whole new industries like US Steel, Dupont, Google, eBay, Honeywell, and Intel were started by immigrant founders. Chobani Yogurt, founded in 2005 by the immigrant entrepreneur Hamdi Ulukaya in upstate New York, has created 1,500 American jobs.
Just as we find common ground that unites families and protects communities, so too should we ensure that the world’s most talented innovators and entrepreneurs who are educated in our great universities are able to stay and contribute, rather than be forced to set up competitor businesses abroad.
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