A Visa for Job Creators

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704631504575532243982639322.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

by mjfern • 16 years ago

24 17 16 years ago

online.wsj.com

hartror2• 16 years ago

"To continue reading subscribe now"

karzeem2• 16 years ago

Full article at the first result:

http://www.google.com/search?q=a+visa+for+job+creators

hartror2• 16 years ago

Thanks

RealGeek• 16 years ago

WSJ is cloaking

karzeem2• 16 years ago

"Mr. Anderson, a former Immigration and Naturalization Service official, says the U.S. would do better to discard capital requirements and welcome any foreign national who can present a business plan that passes muster with the Small Business Administration."

The part about discarding capital requirements is a clear win, but why not go further and scrap the idea of having the SBA screen the business plans? It's an obvious place for the process to go Kafkaesque, and as step to keep people from gaming the system, it's easy to defeat. How about a visa for anybody who wants to come start a business here, period. (Maybe with the proviso that they're not allowed to draw welfare while on the visa.)

miloshh• 16 years ago

Agreed; unfortunately, the people that will immediately imagine hordes of terrorists entering the country pretending to be entrepreneurs form a significant portion of the electorate.

_delirium• 16 years ago

I think in this case they're worried less about terrorists (who can be excluded on other grounds) and more about mass immigration in general. Simply requiring that you say you have a business plan is equivalent to having no requirements, since anyone can say that.

I'm pretty pro-immigration in general, but wouldn't it be more direct to just greatly increase the immigration quotas, rather than making people go through the charade of pretending to have a business plan? Either that, or if you want to insist that it be a real business plan and not a charade, you need someone to vet them.

mtviewdave• 16 years ago

"How about a visa for anybody who wants to come start a business here, period."

How about removing the employer sponsorship from H-1B and L-1 visas and converting them into general right-to-work visas? Then an H-1B/L-1 visa holder could start their own business without needing government approval.

chris_l• 16 years ago

Well in some fields every individual worker has their own business pro forma. So these would be harmed disproportionately by cheap immigrant competition. The capital requirement ensures that the new business is in competition with substantial existing companies.

shykes3• 16 years ago

How about giving you a deadline to actually create a business, maybe with some threshold of employment, revenue, cash, patent, or other tangible sign of value creation?

yardie2• 16 years ago

And then what?

Most people seem fixated on the problem of getting visas into the country. That's not the US governments problem. Their problem is once you're here you won't leave. This is how people get caught up. An immigrant comes in on a tourist visa, stays, decides to get a low paying job and now is stuck because clearing immigration means you won't be allowed to come back ever again.

So you get one of these visas, deadline comes and you've got nothing. So you stick around and become one of the millions of illegal immigrants. Deportation is a long, expensive process and the US taxpayer would rather not have to do it at all since it's very dirty work.

kristofferR• 16 years ago

There are several hundred millions who would love to legally settle in the US. If the only requirement for a legal VISA would be to file a 99$ registration at sites like incorporate.com, there would be a flood of unproductive applicants with no real goal for their business other than getting a VISA. There has to be some sort of screening process.

exit• 16 years ago

why not just let anyone live anywhere?

_politicalist• 16 years ago

Because that's the wrong kind of "globalization." Investor-oriented globalization is the kind where a wealthy person can move his factory to Mexico and demand many of the same rights he gets in the US; but a poor Mexican can't go to New York and do likewise. For more information:

http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/2006----.htm

A Visa for Job Creators

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