American Innovation is Being Hamstrung by our Broken Immigration System
American Innovation is Being Hamstrung by our Broken Immigration System
A life spent waiting for a green card is dehumanizing. We can do better.
Now that Biden and Trump have secured their respective party nominations, America is set to endure another long campaign season over the same hot button issues. Unfortunately, while the debate over immigration on our southern border will keep grabbing headlines, not nearly enough attention will be given to the brewing crisis undercutting our nation’s technological leadership - our broken green card system.
Above all else, America’s role as the most innovative country on the planet has come down to one thing: people. For decades America has been the undisputed destination for the world’s top talent to do their best work.
We see this repeatedly in the tech industry. More than half of our country’s billion-dollar startups had an immigrant founder, fueling our economies’ growth and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. High-skilled immigrants are so important that President Biden dedicated an entire section of his AI executive order to immigration reforms that would streamline visas for foreign AI talent.
Yet now, at a critical moment, America’s self-inflicted wounds have resulted in America losing its status as a global leader for talent. Whereas just twenty years ago America attracted more inventors than every other country combined, last year Canada replaced America as the top destination for employment-based migration.
I empathize with high-skilled immigrants moving to Canada, as I was almost forced to do the same. Twenty years ago, my wife and I experienced the unsettling stress and uncertainty of not knowing whether we would receive a green card before our visa expired, which would have required us to leave the country for a year before we could get a shot at coming back to the US. It got to the point where we filled out the paperwork to immigrate to Canada, just in case. Thankfully, my green card came through just in time, which meant we could stay, build a family, and I got to stay and work as the CTO of a startup that was acquired by Microsoft 3 years later.
I was one of the lucky ones, as the ballooning backlog for visas in recent years means my green card would most likely not have come through. The U.S. has all-time-high of more than 1.8 million people waiting for employment-based green cards, over half of whom have advanced degrees. Thanks to rules restricting each country’s share of green cards, more populous countries like my home country of India bear the greatest burden. The problem is so bad that an estimated 400,000 Indians will die before getting their employment-based green card (assuming they do not lose their job and leave the country first).
What is frustrating is that common sense solutions exist. We simply lack political leaders with the will to act. Bipartisan legislation to address the issue has included proposals to:
Relax or eliminate the per-country cap so that immigrants’ chance of a green card does not depend on their country of birth.
Keep families together by allowing a pathway for minors who turn 18 to stay in the country.
Exempt spouses and children from the cap to let more people stay.
Exempt talent with advanced STEM degrees from green card caps, as outlined in the America COMPETES Act, so that we keep top technical talent in the country.
Clear the backlog by recapturing unused visas from the past 30 years.
A life spent waiting for a green card is dehumanizing. I see it in my employees and peers, some of whom have spent over a decade in green card limbo. Major life decisions like whether to buy a house, build a business, or start a family are complicated by not knowing how long a person has until they are forced to leave. Spending years on employment-based visas also gives employers unfair power over their teams, as getting fired or laid off could force you to leave the country.
I am grateful to be in America, where I have built and sold three startups totalling over a billion dollars, created thousands of jobs, and established a future for my family. Now, as the leader of a startup studio, I interact with hundreds of brilliant, hungry, entrepreneurial immigrants looking to contribute to America’s own future, if only our broken immigration system would let them.
America’s future is only as bright as its people. Now, what we need more than ever, is leaders willing to uphold our country’s legacy as the top destination for global talent. Not only will these reforms build a more humane immigration system, they will also ensure the world’s most ambitious people continue to build the future right here in America.
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Great follow-up to your piece in CalMatters, Vivek! https://calmatters.org/commentary/2024/01/visa-program-reform-technology-economy/