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Douglas Baker: We’re Turning Away Entrepreneurs. Fix Our Immigration Policy
Twin Cities Pioneer Press June 13, 2012 Last week’s jobs report said employers added only 69,000 jobs in May. This was a disappointing statistic, but also a somewhat misleading one as it implies a simplicity that doesn’t exist. In fact, hundreds of thousands of jobs were both created and eliminated last month. For perspective, in […]
Read MoreREGION: A Third of Inland Small-Business Owners are Immigrants
The Press-Enterprise June 13, 2012 In an Indiana Avenue strip mall just off Highway 91 in Riverside, there’s an Egyptian-run dry cleaner, a Thai-owned postal-services shop, a Mexican-operated Christian bookstore, a Chinese foot-massage business, a Cambodian-owned deli and an Egyptian-run pizza cafe. Only one business in the center has a U.S.-born owner. Such concentrations of […]
Read MoreGive Us Your Geniuses: Why Seeking Smart Immigrants Is a No-Brainer
The Atlantic June 13, 2012 In 1939, four physicists wrote a letter to the president of the United States, alerting him to the possibility of nuclear weapons. The United States responded with the Manhattan Project. In short order, the new weapon produced by that project had made the United States the world’s first true superpower […]
Read MoreH-1B Visas Hit the Cap, Sending Companies to Plan B
Bloomberg Businessweek June 13, 2012 For Silicon Valley, a day of ritual disappointment came on June 12: The U.S. announced that the slots for 2013 H-1B visas had all been filled. On the first business day in April, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services opens the rounds of petitioning for these coveted visas for highly skilled […]
Read MoreMigrants Keep Small-Business Faith
Wall Street Journal June 13, 2012 Immigrants are more inclined to own small businesses than native-born Americans and are increasingly opening shop in areas beyond the major cities in which they have traditionally settled, a trend that is energizing local economies and reshaping communities. Immigrants accounted for 18% of the country’s 4.9 million small-business owners […]
Read MoreImmigrant-Owned Small Businesses Contribute More to Economy Than You’d Think
In the never-ending debate over the impact that immigration has on the U.S. economy, the role of immigrant small businesses usually goes unnoticed. While mention is sometimes made of the fact that two in five Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants, the little businesses—the majority that employ under 100 people—are often forgotten. In large […]
Read MoreMinnesota Business and Labor Unite on Need for Immigration Reform
Twin Cities Daily Planet June 12, 2012 What can bring the SEIU, UFCW Local 1189, UNITE HERE Local 17 together with Ecolab, Cargill, Carlson Companies and the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce? They’re all on the same page, signed on to a joint statement supporting immigration reform now. Also on that page are civic and advocacy […]
Read MoreMinnesota Business Leaders say Immigration Leads to Economic Growth
Minnesota Public Radio June 12, 2012 Top executives of three of Minnesota’s biggest employers share their views on immigration reform and the future of the workplace at a panel discussion by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce on June 8, 2012. Panel members included Jeremy Robbins,Partnership for a New American Economy, Douglas Baker, CEO of Ecolab […]
Read MoreEven Evangelicals Agree: Congress Needs to Take Action on Immigration
DREAM Act students, immigration advocates and community leaders have turned up the heat on Congress and the Obama administrative in recent weeks to do something, anything, about our nation’s immigration problems. Yesterday, Evangelical leaders—including the National Association of Evangelicals, and Focus on the Family—joined that effort, denouncing recent “self-deportation policies” and calling on leaders to […]
Read MoreImmigration: Something Has Got To Change
Forbes June 12, 2012 It doesn’t matter where one is born. It’s about winning. And, the competition is for talent. We have written about the need for immigration reform before. We noted that immigration reform has been a pet peeve of former General Electric chief Jack Welch. This last weekend, CNN had a special edition […]
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