Are you kidding me? You need to invest at least $500,000 for the EB-5.
Most families don't have $500,000 to just invest in order to get their child a green card. A lot of international students I know worked part-time on-campus (permitted on the F-1 student visa) in order lessen the burden on their parents. Their families struggled to put together the money to pay for college in the U.S.
I went to Stony Brook University, and between the time I came in and graduated, tuition had risen by over 50% for international students. (State law did not restrict tuition hikes for foreign students.)
You're reacting very strongly in each reply. It's a bit over the top, given you said this:
> You are insinuating that "wealthy upper class" can immigrate without obeying visa rules. That is ridiculous.
The parent you're replying to never said most families could afford that. The parent was indicating that you can buy your way into America, which you in fact can do. The wealthy upper class can buy their way in, and do this all the time (see: wealthy Chinese buying their way into the US).
He was responding to the article, but the WSJ article is not about the super-rich moving here. It is about the vast majority of skilled immigrants who have to go through the H-1B visa as a step in their immigration process.
What neither the article nor the underlying report resolve is, do immigrant founders of $1B+ companies representative of the same population of H1-B visa recipients?
For example, many of the founders came to the US to go to school in the US, including Harvard. Is that reflective of the general population of H1-B visa holders? If not, can the conclusions drawn from the very small number of $1B+ startups be used to make policy decisions about the vast majority of skilled immigrants?
> do immigrant founders of $1B+ companies representative of the same population of H1-B visa recipients?
You make a very good point here. The thing is that it is absolutely impossible to filter or select for future $1B+ startup founders.
Most immigrant tech startup founders in the Bay Area first come to the US as foreign students. They then get a job like most people, but also have to go through a long and difficult struggle with the U.S. immigration system in order to get a green card. Only after getting a green card, do most start a company (because self-sponsorship with your own company is prohibited on an H-1B visa). For their first 10 years or so in the U.S., they have no laurels to show, and nothing that sets them apart from a typical good software engineer at Google. There is no data point from which you predict that X person is going to become a future successful startup founder.
I am another example of this. Right now, I don't have much to show besides my work experience, some CS research I did in college, and a few GitHub projects. I'd definitely like to start a company some day. I think I am somewhat representative of the general population of H1-B visa holders. That I might some time in the future be far more successful, and a huge blessing to this country's economy, and to its people, cannot be positively predicted based on where I am in life today.
> many of the founders came to the US to go to school in the US, including Harvard
There is no official data that shows you where H-1B visa holders went for college. But I can take an educated guess. Everyone that I've met that is on an H-1B visa graduated from a US school. I would guess at least half of all H-1B visa holders studied in the US.
If you filtered by the ranking of the university that a foreign student attended, and said that only graduates from prestigious widely-famous universities are allowed to stay in this country, and every else from lesser universities, should get kicked out, then I would be kicked out along with them. My guess is that the majority of immigrant startup founders didn't go to Harvard/Stanford/MIT/etc.
The report described by the WSJ made that association which you and I agree is not reasonable to make.
While you are correct about official data, my comment concerns the report. The report identifies immigrant founders by college degree, including John Collison, Daniel Saks, Mario Schlosser, and Michelle Zatlyn, all from Harvard.
4/60 immigrant founders of $1B+ startups have a Harvard education. I do not think 6.7% of H1-B visa holders have a Harvard education.
I agree that it's unlikely that 6.7% of H-1B visa holders have a Harvard education. But about half the founders listed in the report[1] went to non-famous colleges.
The broader policy question raised by the report however is about the current extremely restrictive low limit of 85,000 on H-1B visas, which are crucial for any immigrant student to be able to stay in the US. The report tries to show one way in which immigrants are helpful, and yes it does focus very much on the most successful immigrants. That doesn't mean they don't have a valid point.
85,000 is less than 0.03% of the US population. Australia, with a population of 23 million, issued 120,000 skilled work visas in 2013. That is 0.5%. Nearly every other first-world country has a higher rate of skilled worker immigration than the United States. We keep it artificially down with the quotas. We determine the fate and future of an immigrant student in this country with a lottery, which to most people might sound like a cruel joke.
By "unlikely" you mean "mathematically impossible for the founder population to be representative of the H-1B visa holder population" right? Harvard doesn't graduate enough international students each year to maintain this ratio.
With your second sentence, are you trying to argue that about half of H-1B visa holder population went to famous colleges? Otherwise, what's your point?
My point is that the report gives anecdotes and numbers that cannot be used for sound policy decisions.
Anecdotes are nothing new. 100 years ago we would have read how Andrew Carnegie, son of poor Scottish weavers, became one of the wealthiest people in the US through his innovative steel company. While it's a valid point that immigrants can be helpful, it's also a valid point that the US has more than 100,000 citizens - neither point is all that useful. Or do you really think that most of the target audience won't be able to think of dozens of helpful contributions by immigrants, so need a reminder?
Numbers that cannot be used for policy decisions are also not new. I earlier give an example of the report "Most high tech companies are founded by founded by First/2nd gen immigrants", which is another statement that cannot be used to make a policy decision.
So you tell me, based on this report, are immigrants over- or under- represented as (co)founders of $1B+ startups? Should we have different policy changes if they are under-represented, vs. if they are over-represented? Or what if the number of immigrant founders is what we would except from population statistics?
Your views, frequently stated, are pro-immigration. That's fine. I support that, and I speak as an immigrant who is in turn the child of an immigrant.
But this report cannot be used to support your viewpoint other than with the trivial observation that there are ways in which immigrants are helpful.
> It is about the vast majority of skilled immigrants who have to go through the H-1B visa as a step in their immigration process.
They don't have to go through the H-1B process. Generally, wealthy people are people don't just have good jobs and money, they also have connections, are attractive, and hold citizenship from wealthy countries, all things that make it much easier to come to the US.
Their connections allow them a number of ways into the US (Everything from an A visa for family members of foreign government employees, to L visas for inter company transfers, to an O visa for various types of talent). If they're attractive enough it's common that they'd marry an American (or commit immigration fraud, which is common enough). Lastly, if they're from a wealthy country, their chances of winning the diversity lottery are actually quite high.
The paths into the US are convoluted, but numerous.
I disagree. I've met people from Canada, France, Germany, the U.K., and other people who have citizenship in wealthy first-world countries through FWD.us meetups and elsewhere. They all had an incredibly hard time immigrating here.
We're not talking about the top 2% or 3%, but the 95% of the citizens of these rich first-world countries. Not folks who have $500k+ just lying around. One of the peope I met at FWD.us was a Canadian citizen, but he couldn't even get a TN visa because the TN occupation list didn't cover his field. See this article for more stories: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/us/large-companies-game-h-...
Also, the O visa is not "for various types of talent". It is an "extraordinary ability" visa that is really difficult to get. The only viable employment-based pathways to the US are the H-1B visa, the L-1 (intra-company transfer), and for rare talented few, the O-1 visa. The L-1 is a horrible visa where you can't change jobs and are deported if you ever get laid off. If you want the ability to change jobs, your only option is the H-1B visa[1].
I've looked carefully into the visa rules, and it as though Congress wanted to make it as hard as possible for people to immigrate into this country. They've built a incredibly complex system with numerous restrictions and conditions, and Damocles swords.
[1] H-1B visa holders lose legal status the very day after their employment ends. H-1B visa holders can change jobs, but they must be careful to never get laid off. It's insane. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11188339
I don't understand this reply at all; you said "that "wealthy upper class" can immigrate without obeying visa rules. That is ridiculous.", and your parent reply pointed out that it's not ridiculous, it's literally true.
I meant to say that he was wrong in characterizing immigrants students and entrepreneurs as coming from a "wealthy upper class". The majority of foreign students come from middle class families, many which probably struggle to pay US college tuition, and cannot afford a $500,000 investor visa.
Most families don't have $500,000 to just invest in order to get their child a green card. A lot of international students I know worked part-time on-campus (permitted on the F-1 student visa) in order lessen the burden on their parents. Their families struggled to put together the money to pay for college in the U.S.
I went to Stony Brook University, and between the time I came in and graduated, tuition had risen by over 50% for international students. (State law did not restrict tuition hikes for foreign students.)
It's condescending of you to suggest an EB-5. Like "Let them eat cake": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake