Communications of the ACM
Other Countries Court Skilled Immigrants Frustrated by U.S. Visa Laws
Prakash Narayan and his partner may have to move the company they founded because their U.S. student visas will soon expire.
Credit: Gretchen Ertl / The Washington Post
Business and academic leaders are concerned that U.S. immigration laws are forcing the departure of highly skilled foreigners educated in U.S. universities. Unlike other countries, the United States does not offer specific visas for young entrepreneurs who want to start businesses in America. "We train these people and then we push them away, while Chile and the U.K. and Canada are coming in to recruit them," says the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT's) Bill Aulet.
President Obama and some members of Congress have suggested creating a "startup visa" for foreign entrepreneurs. An EB-1 visa currently exists for people with "extraordinary ability," but these visas are among the most difficult to get.
About half of all Ph.D.'s working in science and technology are foreign-born, according to a Brookings Institution study, and about 40 percent of all MIT graduate students are from other countries. MIT's Leon Sandler notes it costs about $250,000 to educate a single Ph.D. student and the U.S. government pays for at least 80 percent of MIT's graduate research. "Essentially, we are funding their research, spending a quarter-million dollars in taxpayer money; then we make it hard for these people to stay here," Sandler says.
From The Washington Post
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