Immigrant entrepreneurs are playing important roles at U.S. technology startups, with immigrants serving in key management and product development positions at 37 of the top 50 venture-backed companies—or roughly three out of every four of the startups—according to a study released yesterday.
“It’s clear that America gains a great deal when we’re open to talent, wherever that talent was born,” said Stuart Anderson, executive director of the Virginia-based National Foundation for American Policy and author of the study.
The foundation, a non-profit and non-partisan research outfit, says Anderson’s study is the first to examine the role played by immigrants in starting companies that develop new technologies, products, and services in information technology, health, energy, business and financial services, and other fields.
Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association, said the venture-backed companies in the study with immigrant founders created 150 jobs on average—and “job creation is so critical in this day and age.” During a media conference call, Heesen also lamented “the amount of time and capital that entrepreneurs and VCs spend on trying to help these entrepreneurs get green cards so they can stay here in the United States.”
Of course, the study comes at a time when Congress is considering various legislation that would make it easier for talented and highly educated foreign nationals to gain permanent U.S. residency. While roughly 140,000 immigrants win green cards that enable them to remain in the United States each year, Anderson said U.S. immigration policy should be relaxed to allow foreign-born students to remain permanently in the United States after
