Earlier, Donald Trump administration had indicated that it would tighten the work visa rules. But now they have come out with a specified rule under which they announced to delay the so-called ‘startup’ visa. The US Department of Homeland Security issued a memo saying that the rule will now be launched on March 14, 2018, and it will solicit comments from the public about rescinding the rule, and “may ultimately eliminate the program”.
In January, the Barack Obama administration has signed the petition to allow foreign entrepreneurs to live in the country who have started their company. It was supposed to come into effect on July 17 but under the Donald Trump’s governance, this petition has been delayed. The Obama administration’s idea was to keep high-calibre talent in the US itself, who come here for the studies but return to their countries and start the businesses. The announcement made by the administration is going to attack many Indian entrepreneurs.
According to the data released by the National Foundation for American Policy(NFAP) of 2016, immigrants have started more than half of US startups and are key members of either management or product development teams in more than 70% of these companies. Among them, 30% people are of Indian origin.
Vivek Wadhwa who owns Indian-American technology entrepreneur and academic called this policy “brain-dead” and a “lose-lose” for the US. He added “Without the doubt, bringing in entrepreneurs creates American jobs and expands the economy, it is the closest thing there could be to a free lunch for the United States. This is lose-lose for the US and for the entrepreneurs who would have come here but it will benefit the countries where they would have come from”. According to him, the Trump administration is pandering to anti-immigrant groups rather than focusing on US competitiveness and economic growth.
Puru Vashishtha, an Indian entrepreneur working in the Valley said the startup visa would have been great for Indian and Israeli students. He added “Imagine if Vinod Khosla had to come back to India to work in Infosys. That would have been a big loss for innovation. Unfortunately, it’s already happening now, due to difficulties faced by international students and immigrants to become entrepreneurs. Countries like Canada are taking advantage of it, but they don’t have big enablers that Silicon Valley provides and a big market that the US readily provides”.
Vashishtha added that he has witnessed the struggle of many of his Stanford friends without the startup visa. “These were highly trained, best minds in the world. They wanted to do product startup in the Valley. Unfortunately, because of being a foreign national, even a top university graduate does not get the same options as rest of her US classmates. This is regressive and it deprives the US of significant value creation and job creation. startup visa was a big hope.”
According to a 2012 study, companies founded by immigrants in the US have created more than 10 million jobs and over ₹2 lakh 90 thousand crores in annual revenue which is a huge amount.