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Trump Plans To Dismantle Obama-Era 'Startup Visa' (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A regulation from the Obama administration that would have allowed foreign-born entrepreneurs who raise investor cash to build their startups in the U.S. won't be allowed to go into effect. The Department of Homeland Security will file an official notice to delay the International Entrepreneur Rule for eight months. The intention is to eliminate the rule entirely, according to sources briefed on the matter who spoke to The Wall Street Journal. The decision isn't final, and a DHS spokesperson told the WSJ that the department "cannot speculate" on the outcome of the review. The International Entrepreneur Rule, signed by former President Obama days before he left office in January, doesn't offer a visa but rather a type of "parole" that would allow immigrants to stay in the U.S. temporarily as long as they meet certain requirements. In order to qualify, a foreign entrepreneur has to raise at least $250,000 from well-known U.S. investors. The rule grants a stay in the U.S. of 30 months, which can be extended for an additional 30 months. Founders can't apply for a green card during that time. DHS has estimated about 3,000 entrepreneurs would qualify under the rule.
If I were President I'd scrap this rule too--because it's just too confusing. But then, everything having to do with visiting and obtaining permission to work within the United States, as well as with immigrating to the United States, is just terribly confusing. And I say this as a U.S. citizen.
Personally I would rather we simplify all these regulations regarding immigration--and make it easier for people who qualify to immigrate here without all this weird mumbo-jumbo "parole, no green card, 30 months, can't visit overseas for longer than so many days, do not pass go, must recite ancient Aramaic to come back" nonsense. I swear; just talking to my friends who immigrated here from overseas about what they had to do to become U.S. citizens gives me a massive headache.
'Cause Obama did it.
That seems to be the guiding light behind a lot of stuff Trump is doing. If it was a policy pushed by Obama, Trump wants it off the books. It doesn't matter if it is something Trump would nominally support, if it was done by Obama, Trump is going to get it changed. Had Obama built a 30' wall all along the Mexican border and gotten Mexico to pay for it, Trump would be tearing it down. The guy's got a raging hard-on for destroying Obama's legacy.
Setting aside your complaints of racism, one reason why some of us would like to eliminate H-1B and replace it with something else is because the rules behind H-1B creates some onerous requirements that resemble indentured servitude.
When you receive an H-1B visa, you must be sponsored by a company, and that creates a situation where if you lose your job, you may also lose your apartment, your friends, and everything you own that you can't carry on the airplane as you are shipped back "home." This puts H-1B holders at a significant disadvantage during salary negotiations, since their status (including the path towards citizenship or green card status) can effectively be held hostage by the sponsoring corporation.
Further, there is a cap on how long someone on an H-1B can stay in the United States. After that period, it's not uncommon for people (usually computer programmers and systems analysts) to return back to the country where they originally came from--but retain their jobs via telecommuting, but at a lower salary (on the theory the cost of living is cheaper). This contributes to off-shoring of jobs.
Personally I would rather see this system replaced with one which greatly simplifies the process of gaining a green card (permanent residency). This would prevent many of the abuses of the H-1B program, as a permanent resident doesn't have to rely on a corporate sponsor to stay. Just as I'd like to see the path to citizenship greatly simplified as well.
More importantly, this isn't the EB-5 investor visa that Jared Kushner's sister was busy hawking in China. That's the one which allows someone to essentially buy a visa for $500,000. Theoretically that was money to invest in a business, but in practice they can simply 'invest' in, let's say, someone's real estate development (such as the Kushner family's), which amounts mostly just to giving cash to whoever runs that development.
Instead, this startup visa (would have) required someone to have an idea for a business that's good enough to attract investors. Maybe some of them fail, but maybe some of them are the next (insert cool/successful tech startup), and we'd rather they be in the US than in the other countries trying to attract them.
Of course, the startup visa was drawn from the number of visas otherwise available for EB-5 buyers. Gee, I wonder why Trump and Kushner would want to cut startup visas, but keep the EB-5 around.
Only one problem: this is a way for immigrants to legally start businesses in the USA. It's now being shut down. How does that help with illegal immigration?
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
This scheme in fact involves creating US jobs
No, this is just another avenue to smuggle foreigners into the country. The plan that this will be used for creating jobs is really far fetched. Anyone who can show $250K (do they even need to show it?) is allowed to to invite anyone they please for 5 years. The cover that the money will be used to start a business is really hard to prove or verify. Also, who is going to invest into a business of a foreign tourist with a temp visa?
Your entire post has left me shaking my head. I have a hard time figuring out where to even begin. Since I can't possibly address everything, I will pick on this:
This is not about jobs. This is about scapegoating immigrants for America's problems, and then "dealing" with immigrants as a substitute for dealing with the actual problems America has.
The problem with your logic is that you don't see people violating our laws and the government not enforcing the laws as a problem. We are going on 20 years of presidents picking and choosing which laws they like/dislike (Obama failing to enforce and vigorously defend the Defense of Marriage Act, Bush deciding that pesky things like the Fourth Amendment were more advisory in nature, and others). In fact it is the only thing the current generation has even seen presidents do.
People have become so accustomed to cheering when their guy ignores the laws they don't like and screaming when the other side's guy ignores the laws they do like, that when somebody comes along and says he wants actually enforce the laws (motivation aside) everybody loses their minds.
Personally, I think our immigration system is a train wreck. However, I believe that the rule of law is more important, so the proper sequence of events is enforce the laws on the books as they stand now so that the executive branch gets to what its like to actually do their jobs. Once that is in order people can start writing their representatives to get the mess fixed. People can even start writing their representatives now and get some work started on fixing that in parallel. What Trump is doing is an attempt to fix the problem. You probably disagree with his approach, but he is still trying to do something.
The crazy thing is that Obama twice campaigned successfully by wooing the immigrant community with his promises of fixing immigration. He had the ability and opportunity to fix this. Both times he didn't lift a finger. Check that, he lifted one finger: his middle finger right in their faces.
Like it or not, lots of people immigrate legally to the US, as much of a pain as it is. The way we have handled illegal immigration for the past few decades is just a slap in the face to people who have come here in a way that respects our laws.
Exactly how many full-time salaries do you think $250k will cover?
Real tech start-ups need millions in funding. This looks more like a way for people to buy immigrant entry to the US.
$250k is going to cover two full time people for a year if you don't run your startup in Silicon Valley. In that year, you can then start you know... bringing in some money, so you can pay them more, or you can prove that your product is worthwhile and get hold of more funding.
I don't deny that $250k is a small number, but arguing that you can't start a company with quarter of a million dollars is ridiculous. Not all startups have to be unicorns.
The problem with your logic is that you think this is about illegal immigrants. Your entire rest of your post rests on the presumption that this is all Trump cares about. If that were the case, Slashdotters wouldn't be so excited by the notion he's going to "do something" about H1-Bs. Do you think H1-Bs are illegal? For the matter, look at what Trump is actually doing, to thunderous applause from his supporters: Do you think being a refugee and turning up at an American airport is illegal? Do you think that having a visa issued by an American embassy in a country that's suffering war or terrorism is illega?
Look again at the words Trump uses. He's not talking about how Mexicans are here without valid visas and making some nuanced point about the consequences of immigration outside of the legal immigration framework that applies to everyone else.
No, he's flat out stating that Mexicans who come to America are rapists, murderers, and drug pushers.
You're another variant of the kind of person I'm criticizing, because you've decided to not to care about what Trumps actual reasons are, instead just hoping the fact he's "anti-immigration" means he'll fix an immigration-related issue you care about. He doesn't care about your reasons. He's not doing it for you. He's doing it because immigrants are a convenient scapegoat. His goal is to get you to blame America's problems on immigrants, because it's a hell of a lot easier to ban people from entering America than it is to fix America's problems for real.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The problem with your logic is that you don't see people violating our laws and the government not enforcing the laws as a problem
The problem with your logic is you are putting words in his mouth and then arguing against statements he never made. He never said illegal immigration wasn't a problem. He was I believe inferring it wasn't as big of a problem as it is being made out to be, which is a fair point. Illegal immigration is arguably just an appropriate byproduct of failing immigration policies. Our country needs more workers willing to do jobs US citizens tend to find undesirable but that produce goods US citizens do find desirable at a low cost (like food). Unless we create a legal way to let millions of workers into this country to fill these jobs, we need illegal immigrants. The tragedy is how poorly these immigrants are treated, not that they are here in the first place. The thing to fix is to thank them for the risks they take to improve our country even as our country marginalizes them.
Thankfully we have people willing to break our laws when they are unjust and harm our country, just like we had people willing to fight against slavery while that was still legal. The thought that the rule of law is more important than human decency is a horrible source of evil in this world. It is a shameful belief to hold.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Anyone living in America bitching about people coming to this country "illegally" is a huge hypocrite. Just ask the next Cherokee you run across.
Pretty sure there is no one in the country that was born prior to 1776. US law states that if you are born on US soil, you are a US citizen regardless of your parents status.
So while our ancestors did some shit things to the native population, no US citizen can be considered to be here illegally at this point in time and is therefore not a hypocrite when they say they want people to immigrate here by legal means.
in case you forgot he lost the vote.
And there we have it folks, proof of a clueless moron that just toes the party line.
First of all, the POTUS is not elected by the popular vote and never has been. You can argue all day long if the electoral college is right or not, but it is the long standing law on how the election happens. Hillary knew this, but chose to go for the pointless popular vote.
Secondly, the only cases of electors going against the will of the people they were representing were ones that tried (I believe all were overturned?) to vote against Trump even though that's how their state voted.
Finally, for all the crying about how Hillary won the popular vote but lost the election, where is the complaining about how the DNC did the exact same thing (though through back door dealings and flouting their own rules rather than following long standing law) to nominate Hillary to begin with? Until it was clear that the fix was in, Bernie won primary after primary, yet some how the delegates kept going to Hillary??? Talk about being a hypocrite!
Why do you assume that?
He assumes that because, like many economic illiterates, he believes the job market is zero-sum. If there are N jobs, and an immigrant takes one of them, then there are N-1 jobs left for real Americans. Of course this is total nonsense. Real economies don't work that way.
an immigrant decides to go to Canada instead and start a company there
Many other countries are far more enlightened about immigration. Immigration, especially of educated people, tends to create net jobs, and create better jobs. Instead of keeping them out, we should be trying to promote more immigration by marketing America as a destination for entrepreneurs, researchers, investors, etc.