Reuters has a short article detailing how the UK has been successful in luring a growing number of foreign entrepreneurs to open up shop (or even move their companies to the UK). While there are still plenty of foreign entrepreneurs starting or moving companies to the US, it's got little to do with the US government -- which often makes it quite difficult for foreign entrepreneurs to relocate here. While, thanks in large part to Brad Feld's activism, there is finally some movement on a startup visa concept, the US government still takes a rather hostile view towards foreign entrepreneurs and foreign startups. With other countries actively courting and welcoming them -- and backing it up with some infrastructural changes, this should be seen as a serious problem for US innovation. Of course there's a lot more to this issue, and there are certainly institutional reasons why the US has long had a strong startup culture, but we shouldn't merely assume that we can just rest on our laurels, especially as others are ramping up their efforts to attract hot startups.

A couple of years ago, we noted that US Immigration was making life difficult for touring musicians by changing the way they enforced the visas commonly used by musicians. Specifically, the usual visa required proof of popularity -- but had no systems in place to account for popularity via the internet. This resulted in various well known musicians (including, by the way, our friend Lily Allen) being barred from making expected appearances in the US. It appears this sort of thing is happening again. The law still hasn't changed, but US Immigration has again increased the strictness in how it interprets the existing laws for foreign musicians, leading some top acts to be barred from entering the country -- or just increasing the bureaucracy they need to go through. For many foreign acts, touring the US is quite important in attracting more attention.

The article discusses how this is harming some acts that have built a lot of buzz or won awards... but then have had trouble capitalizing on that with a US tour. It's kind of amusing that just as we hear from politicians talking about the importance of helping musicians with more and more draconian copyright laws, they're making it that much more difficult for them to tour, build their reputation and earn a living. The next time an American politician discusses the need for more draconian copyright laws to help musicians, perhaps a reporter can ask them about this particular issue as well.

I've publicly thrown my support behind the idea of a startup founders' visa that makes it much easier for foreign skilled workers who want to come to the US to start companies and create jobs to do so. Right now, our immigration policies do not favor entrepreneurs at all. The good news is that this very grassroots movement has actually picked up some steam, with a ton of support from the startup ecosystem around the country. Whether or not that translates to enough political momentum remains to be seen.

To understand just how important this is, here's one story of an entrepreneur who's been working hard to help build a startup in Silicon Valley who, only just this week, has found himself stuck in Canada unable to get back to the US, despite believing he had the proper visa (in this case, an H-1b). The story is depressing, and reminds you of all the ridiculous bureaucracy that people are forced to go through for something that makes no sense:

Just as everything seemed to be going so well, I came up to Vancouver on September 24th to renew my H1b visa and it turns out the approval I got last year is not worth it's weight in paper. Upon appearing for my interview, my previous approval notice was held by the consulate till I furnished a ton of extra documentation from our tax filings last year, to a full report of all employees, all of my bank statements right down to the photographs of our work area (as alien founders we cannot have startups in garages and our apartments, it has to be in real offices).

I worked through the rest of Thursday and all through the night gathering all this evidence.... So after working through the night to get the evidence to the officers the very next day by 11:30 am, I was told that my application would take a week to be reviewed.

My biggest concern is that an LLC due to it's structure doesn't pay a salary to it's members but a guaranteed payment. My attorney has already warned me that this is a slippery slope to start explaining to consular officers when the time comes.

Now leaving aside the exorbitant costs of living in a city like Vancouver for a week, I don't have to talk about what an entire week means in startup terms. This particular week in question, since we're in fundraising mode, I have had to cancel a meeting with Comcast Capital and cannot present at the Plug and Play Expo on Thursday Oct 1st - they were nice enough and believed in our product to pretty much waive the $1500 participation fee, only to realize I can't make it.

It makes no sense that someone like this should be going through this sort of ridiculous bureaucratic process, held back by bureaucrats who don't understand how startups work.

Brad Feld, the venture capitalist who deserves all the credit in the world for taking this concept -- originally proposed by startup investor/mentor Paul Graham -- and actually getting some political interest in it, has a post discussing the momentum and some open questions.

The main open question he brings up is about how investors can "sponsor" an entrepreneur. Basically any qualified venture capitalist or "super angel" who is investing at least $100,000 in a round of at least $500,000 could sponsor a founder. I have to be honest that I'm not sure I agree with this. Why should the visa be dependent on financing? These days, we're hearing about more and more startups that are bootstrapping their way to success, or getting by on much smaller amounts of money. If a founder can build a successful company without raising $500k, should they not be allowed to take advantage of the startup founder's visa as well?

The proposal goes on to have renewal rules, as well, that also are dependent on job creation and raising more money. The job creation bit I can understand, but again I am troubled by the "raising money" bit. Why should the investors be the gatekeepers in determining who gets to be an entrepreneur?

Back in April, we wrote about Paul Graham's excellent idea to create a special startup founder's visa to help allow the founders of startups the ability to come to the US and build their companies here. This is important as studies have shown how skilled foreign entrepreneurs have been vital in building up our tech industry and creating new jobs. A recent study showed that 25% of all tech startups in the US and over 50% of those in Silicon Valley are founded by immigrants. There's simply no reason not to help more immigrants start companies in the US, but our current immigration setup is a mess, and it's quite difficult. I've seen companies fail (and, even was working closely with one many years ago) when a founder had to leave the country due to visa issues. However, after Paul Graham's suggestion, not much has been mentioned.

However, VC Brad Feld says that he's heard from a Congressional Rep who's actually interested in the idea, and he's trying to build up more support behind the idea -- and he's looking for feedback on the concept itself and how to make it a reality. I can't think of a single good reason for us not to encourage more skilled immigration -- especially if it's for the purpose of starting a company. Hopefully, this actually gets some traction.

I still cannot understand the antagonism that many seem to feel towards skill foreigners getting jobs in the US. The job market is not a zero-sum game, and there are two important things to understand when it comes to these foreigners:

1. Studies have shown, repeatedly, that bringing in such skilled foreigners helps create new jobs by expanding the economy. In fact, 25% of all tech startups these days are done by foreign-born workers, and in Silicon Valley that number is over 50%.
2. The even bigger point: it's not as if these skilled workers suddenly disappear if they're not in the US. Instead, they remain in their home countries (or other countries) where they're still just as skilled and now more likely to be competing with US companies, who were hindered in hiring the best employees. Getting beat in the market by a foreign competitor isn't good for US jobs. It's terrible for US jobs.

And yet, thanks to the economy and our own immigration policies, guess what's happening? Not only is it incredibly difficult for skilled foreign workers to get jobs, many foreigners aren't even trying to go to US grad schools any more, knowing how difficult it is to get visas and jobs in the US. As many are noticing, this is undeniably bad for Silicon Valley and bad for innovation. Can someone please explain why it's somehow better to let those people compete with US companies, rather than work with US companies to grow them?

Apparently, the Federal Gov't has been using an ID fraud law that was passed a few years ago not to go after just those copying the identity of others for the sake of fraud, but illegal immigrants using fake IDs. The two scenarios are entirely different, but the Feds were quick to use the law against the illegal immigrants, as it was an easier tool to use than to go through the standard process of dealing with illegal immigrants. Now, no matter what you think of illegal immigrants and how they should be dealt with, we should all be concerned when the government is stretching the intention of a law beyond its clearly stated purpose... and the Supreme Court seems to agree. It's now told the government that it clearly went beyond the boundaries of the law in using it against immigrants. The court points out that the law is pretty clear that the person charged under the law must knowingly take the identity of someone else, but totally made up IDs don't appear covered by the law at all, because the law isn't intended for fake IDs... it's intended to deal with those defrauding others by taking their identity.

In our various debates about immigration policy in the US, we here have always been in favor of a much more permissive immigration policy for skilled immigrants, noting that skilled immigrants have been shown to create more jobs rather than "take them away." For some reason, too many folks incorrectly think that jobs are a zero-sum game, and if a foreigner takes a job, it means one fewer job for Americans. That's wrong in so many ways that it's difficult to take seriously anyone who makes such a claim. That said, it would be interesting to see what even those opposed to expansions of existing skilled worker immigration plans think about Paul Graham's new suggestion of a special startup founder visa, that would allow 10,000 immigrants into the country, but only if they're starting their own company. Thus, they wouldn't be "taking" anyone else's job, since the job they'd be creating wouldn't exist otherwise -- they'd be creating it from scratch. Such a visa would encourage more entrepreneurial activity, and create more startups that should (in all likelihood) end up creating a lot of new jobs as well -- including a few that might go to those people whining about foreigners "stealing" their jobs...

Discussing immigration policy around here is something of a "third rail" item. No matter how many times we explain the importance of bringing smart, educated immigrants into the US, we end up getting a long stream of ignorant comments from people who mistakenly claim that these foreign workers "steal jobs." This is not true. In fact, the opposite is true. Jobs are not a zero sum game. A smart, highly skilled worker helps create new jobs. And... if we hinder them from getting jobs in this country, they end up going to (or staying in) another country, where they compete with American companies, often causing a much greater job loss, as business moves to that foreign company rather than the American company. And yet too many people who can't see past the first move in the chain of events insist that bringing highly skilled foreigners into this country is bad.

Well, they should celebrate, because a growing number of those highly skilled foreigners are going back to their home countries from the US. Despite the fact that these are the folks most likely to create jobs by making companies more successful and starting their own companies, some seem to think it's a good thing that these folks are, instead, creating those jobs and those successful companies elsewhere. If they thought about it, they would realize that by keeping these highly skilled individuals out (or pushing them to leave when they're here) that we're actually destroying American jobs. We're encouraging job creation to happen elsewhere rather than in the US, just because some short-sighted individuals think only about a single job opening, rather than about how job creation and economic growth occurs.

While I tend to think that Wikipedia is a good thing overall, that's because I know it's not a source that should be relied on by itself for important decisions -- such as whether or not to grant political asylum to an individual. It can be useful as a starting point, if that information can be corroborated elsewhere. Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security felt otherwise in using Wikipedia to deny a request for asylum for a woman. An Appeals Court has now overturned that decision, noting the problems with using Wikipedia as a sole source of info, but the whole scenario should make you wonder. Did DHS really not have the ability to check the legitimacy of the woman's documents without resorting to Wikipedia? What sort of resources are provided to immigration officials that they're making judgments based on a Wikipedia page?