Us Customs Jobs

Progress On The Startup Visa Movement

On 9/10/09 (all my posts can be seen in the category summary Startup Visa  on my blog). A number of colleagues throughout the entrepreneurial community (entrepreneurs, angels, VCs) joined in on the effort as it became a formal grass-roots movement, resulting in several bills being drafted in Congress in 2010 and then 2011.

While I’ve learned a lot about politics, Congress, and how Washington works in the past two years, one thing that became painfully apparent to me was that Congress was completely stalled on anything related to immigration issues. While I’ve continued to view the Startup Visa as a jobs issue (we need more entrepreneurs in the US – anyone should be able to start a company here if they want to, and that creates jobs, which is good for our economy) that’s not how people in Washington see it (“visa” – that means “immigration”).

In parallel, a number of us have been talking to key people in the White House, including the amazing Aneesh Chopra , the White House CTO. Aneesh totally gets this issue as do a number of his colleagues in the White House and the Office of Science and Technology Policy  and they’ve been working on non-legislative solutions that can be implemented with policy changes in USCIS. While the changes made yesterday don’t cover every case, they make a solid step in the right direction.

In the past six months, I’ve personally been involved in about ten cases of foreign entrepreneurs trying to get valid US visas so they could either start their company here or join a US-based company that they helped co-found. After being stymied for a variety of reasons, including extremely aggressive, negative, and inconsistent behavior at the border from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, most of the folks I’ve been talking to and/or helping have been able to get visas. In all cases, they were willing to share their stories, in detail, with people on the White House staff, who I think have been extremely thoughtful and diligent about understanding what was going on, worked hard to figure out appropriate and legal solutions, and provided a constructive and empathetic ear to the very frustrated entrepreneurs.

I don’t feel comfortable naming names as most people are very concerned about confidentiality around immigration issues, but I’m proud of the efforts by many of these entrepreneurs. They didn’t give up, didn’t get angry even when they had plenty of reason to, and were willing to be very open with White House officials in trying to help figure out a more effective approach. I’m also very impressed with the folks at the White House and OSTP who I’ve been working with on this issue. The contrast between their efforts, thoroughness, and their “let’s solve the problem” vs. a “let’s be political” attitude is commendable.

Government Of the People, By the People and For the People? | jobs ...

“Government of the people, by the people and for the people” was President Abraham Lincoln’s eloquent way of describing the relationship between the citizens of the United States and their government in his Gettysburg Address.

That famous quote is often repeated but there seems to be scant attention paid to what those amazing 11 words really mean.

In this day of frustration and anger that many of our fellow citizens feel about our political leaders, do we really believe that we have a government that is comprised of our fellow citizens who are truly seeking to do the best for the most of our fellow Americans?

On May 12, 2011, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) issued a news release touting the following headline:

“ICE announces expanded list of science, technology, engineering, and math degree programs – Qualifies

WASHINGTON-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) today published an expanded list of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) degree programs that qualify eligible graduates on student visas for an Optional Practical Training (OPT) extension-an important step forward in the Obama administration’s continued commitment to fixing our broken immigration system and expanding access to the nation’s pool of talented high skilled graduates in the science and technology fields.

The announcement follows President Obama’s recent remarks in El Paso, Texas, where he reiterated his strong support for new policies that embrace talented students from other countries, who enrich the nation by working in science and technology jobs and fueling innovation in their chosen fields here in the United States, as a part of comprehensive reform.

By expanding the list of STEM degrees to include such fields as Neuroscience, Medical Informatics, Pharmaceutics and Drug Design, Mathematics and Computer Science, the Obama administration is helping to address shortages in certain high tech sectors of talented scientists and technology experts-permitting highly skilled foreign graduates who wish to work in their field of study upon graduation and extend their post-graduate training in the United States.

Last week Senator Charles Schumer, the Senior Senator from New York and Chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, conducted a hearing into the H1-B Visa Program which enables foreign, high tech workers to come to the United States and take jobs in the high tech industries. The aim of the hearing was to find ways of bringing still more high tech workers to the United States.