7 ms·
Immigrant entrepreneur creates 9 jobs, get kicked out of US
- burgerbrain 15y agoImmigration in the US has never been a "took our jobs" thing. Not sincerely. It has always been about xenophobia.
- tomjen3 15y agoI am not so sure. I am a WASP which means that they shouldn't have any xenophobia against me. I can't get a visa either. Personally I am guessing that the education they receive is as bad on the subject of economics as it is here and the people really just assume that those who come from the outside is out to get what they have. This wouldn't be so bad when the economic times are good, but when they are bad (or perceived to be bad, historically they are ridiculously good) people becomes less willing to talk to, and help, strangers.
- dagw 15y agoI am a WASP which means that they shouldn't have any xenophobia against me xenophobia means fear of foreigners or strangers, and as such has nothing to do with race or religion per se.
- tomjen3 15y agoOkay I only thought it was strangers (and since I am a WASP I am not a stranger anymore than a guy a few blocks down the road).
- Vivtek 15y agoYou have an accent. Trust me, I'm from Indiana. You're a stranger. My accent is weird enough from having left Indiana... Let's not even talk about my Hungarian wife.
- jcromartie 15y agoThe uber-conservatives driving the anti-immigration movement don't want WASPy Canadians or Europeans because they are very likely liberal, and therefore outsiders to the "real America" that they are trying to defend.
- Newgy 15y agoNo, its about the fact that several billion people will come here if the door is completely open.
- potatolicious 15y agoExcept this guy (and many, many, many others) is not one of the "several billion". He is highly educated, and highly intelligent. This sets him far apart from the majority of the world's population, which is predominantly impoverished, uneducated, and illiterate. Surely he is not just another one of the uneducated, unwashed masses that America fears so much from its immigrants? I simply don't understand why productive, educated, intelligent people are ever turned away. These people will find opportunities elsewhere - and make some other country more powerful in exchange. There was time when you would give your kidney to be in the USA - what Americans need to wake up and realize that that day has passed. The US is still a very valuable place to be, particularly for a tech entrepreneur, but the advance in the rest of the world over the past two decades has been even more dramatic. The US is unquestionably losing its edge, and IMO there is more justification than ever for a (finally) sane immigration policy.
- dereg 15y agoNot at all. Immigration laws are not the primary inhibitor of migration, (lack of) money is the greatest barrier. The fact that you say your un-learned opinion is a "fact", proves burgerbrain's point that immigration laws are more xenaphobia than anything.
- Symmetry 15y ago"Several" billion? That's half the world's population.
- anamax 15y ago> "Several" billion? That's half the world's population. Yes, it is. Are you suggesting that more than half of the world's population wouldn't move to the US if doing so was a reasonable option for them? Seriously - for most people, being poor in the US would be a huge step up. (As someone put it, almost every "Occupy" protestor is in the 1% on a world-wide basis.) And they're pretty sure that they would do better than the worst.
- Symmetry 15y agoSupporting evidence, from when we first tightened immigration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Red_Scare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Red_Scare
- BerislavLopac 15y agoAh, seems like the US government has a long tradition of using vague and distant foreign threats to tighten the internal pressure on its people. ;)
- rubashov 15y agoUS immigration policy is clearly not motivated by ethnic identity or "xenophobia". The 1965 immigration act and the visa lottery make that clear. But I sincerely ask: why would it be wrong to base immigration policy on such concerns? A nation should have the right to preserve its identity and make-up.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- srl 15y agoWhether or not it is "wrong" is irrelevant. It would fly in the face of one of the things we claim to like most about this country. And it would probably end up hurting us, one way or another. (Irrelevant: yes, I think it would be "wrong". I consider discrimination to be a form of human rights violation. Not being a citizen doesn't mean you don't have rights. Or, it shouldn't. /idealism )
- jheriko 15y agoSo, this guy started working before he had his visa? Even worse he started a job that required personal, non-refundable investments of time and money. I have zero sympathy - this is common sense. Sure they shouldn't have rejected his application as they did, but he shouldn't have assumed he would easily get the visa. Not the kind of guy I would want to work for... at least until he learns some basic life skills to match that education.
- cmer 15y agoI think everybody here will assume you were just being ironic, right?
- rxin 15y agoThe student visa (F1) allows foreigners to work for a year (OPT) after graduation.
- HistoryInAction 15y ago29 months now, with a technical degree: http://www.nafsa.org/regulatory_information.sec/regulatory_document_library.dlib/sevis/opt_29_month_rule/ http://www.nafsa.org/regulatory_information.sec/regulatory_d...
- HistoryInAction 15y agoThings have gotten better under President Obama recently after an initial turn for the worse. The Neufeld memo denied visas to founders on account of initiating a strict requirement that an employer vouch for an immigrant in a variety of ways, for them to be eligible for an H1-B. We don't have employers as founders, turns out. However, these recent changes open the door for H1-B and EB-2 visas as founders: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=3f412bfb4cf81310VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=44eec665e1681310VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f... Vivek Wadhwa is hopeful that adjudicators will shortly be much friendlier to founders applying for visas, as long as they have a board set up and are funded.
- dotBen 15y ago
- ck2 15y agoI seriously do not understand why people come/stay here given the way they are treated by our government. You must be masochists. Things have actually gotten worse under Obama, not better (and I am liberal). What is it like in Israel for startups? In theory his kind of internet startup could work from almost anywhere in the world. Since he is in Vancouver now, might as well bring in the tax dollars for Canada. ps. what is with linking through Digg for this - and they are still framing sites?
- angkec 15y agoI come from China. And US is still way better than China to start a small tech startup. Don't know much about Israel though.
- ck2 15y agoSure, I get that, but if you could go to Vancouver (which apparently is a startup-mecca too) you'd have far less fear about being deported (and ill will from nearly 50% of the population). Why put yourself through that - running a business is enough stress. The USA is like going to a store, filling up your cart, but just before you are about to checkout and make them money, they drag you out the door instead.
- BadassFractal 15y agoI seriously doubt the Vancouver scene is even remotely as big as the one in the Bay Area. The only thing that comes close to SV on this continent is NY, and even that is a decade behind.
- ck2 15y agoBut do you need the "biggest and best" scene, or do you just need a decent environment where what you are trying to do is not uncommon and the resources you need have already been established?
- 15y ago
- ars 15y agoWhy are we linking this via digg? Real url: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/visa-problem-prevents-entrepreneur-creating-american-jobs/story?id=14857757 http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/visa-problem-prevents... Flagged, hoping a mod will change the url.
- cantbecool 15y agoI was thinking the same thing.
- HistoryInAction 15y agoAmit and CruiseWise went through StartupChile, btw. I'm somewhat disappointed that the international talent competition angle didn't play into the story more, based on our initial pitch. We (Bloomberg administration, Startup Visa) pitched this story to ABC with the added angle of capital flight, since CruiseWise raised money from US investors. Not only are people being denied the opportunity to create jobs in the US, but US money is following them out of the country. Not a good combination, right? If you're interested in helping out, crowdsource a few calls to the House to collect staffer information, to 10x our advocacy effectiveness, here is a call script (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H5S8SZjA2SSDUGfQxKV4isjdFYdqPX_17WyjdO2I_4w/edit?hl=en_US https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H5S8SZjA2SSDUGfQxKV4isjd...) and spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?authkey=CIeunIEE&key=0AmI-gd7FhP5TdFlHS0s0bloxRl9ETVZtaVVXX0oxX2c&hl=en_US&authkey https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?authkey=CIeunIEE&...)
- todsul 15y agoAs a tech entrepreneur and global itinerant, I'd love immigration laws around the world to be more lax, but please... "One of the 20 Hot Silicon Valley Startups You Need to Watch" If this were true, I think there'd be more of a case. But remember there are other people in this world aside from tech entrepreneurs. Some of them are in pretty horrid situations and seek asylum. Assuming the US has an intake quota and that intake quota is divided between reasons for immigration, then proponents of the Startup Visa are petitioning that other seekers of asylum or immigration take a back seat. I absolutely support this to an extent, but do we want them to deny all non-tech immigrants for every kid with a website? At what point does a startup deserve to take someone else's place in the queue. And I'm well aware that politicians hate to concede there's a queue, but of course there is.
- HistoryInAction 15y agoActually, there's a bunch of 'visa slack,' since the 10,000 limit for the EB-5 investor visas generally only sees 1-2000 successful applications. What the primary Startup Visa bills call for is to take those unused EB-5 visas and make them available to founders. The argument is that sweat equity should be equivalent in some way to cash money investment, which is what the EB-5 represents.
- sandieman 15y agoWhen? How about when he went to Stanford.
- kyledeb 15y agoI was born and raised in Guatemala of U.S. citizen parents and I spend most of my time fighting this broken and violent immigration system through citizenorange.com and presente.org. I'm a lurker here on hacker news mostly because technology news is a welcome respite from this mess. I just wanted to say that I don't blame folks if they decide the U.S. is not the place to be. God knows I hope to be able to do some of my pro-migrant work from Guatemala someday. At the same time I wanted to tell people that there is a way to fight this messed up system which DREAMers (undocumented youth who only know the U.S. as their home) have paved the way for. It will be a long time before Congress fixes this mostly because debates over the immigration system have nothing to do with rationality, they have mostly to do with the contentious subject of what it means to be an 'American,' where xenophobic ideas certainly play a large role. In the meantime, though, there are administrative things that can be done through Obama administration if you fight hard enough for them and embarass them enough. I'm certain, for example, that this entrepeneur will be fine after this article for instance (he's also lucky he's dealing with USCIS and not ICE). I'm just writing this all out in case there are folks out there who are willing to give coming here to the U.S. a shot and taking on fixing this broken immigration system in addition to creating companies. If all the good folks leave, this problem will never get fixed. And if it looks like your against the wall, there's a good network of pro-migrant activists like me that will fight for you to resist and stay.
- casca 15y agoThe fundamental problem with immigration rules is that the people who follow them are usually the ones a country wants. The skilled, educated people are unwilling to risk getting deported and having worldwide travel restrictions for the rest of their lives. The desperate unskilled have far less to lose if they are caught so are more willing to take the chance.
- rbreve 15y agoThere is an easy solution to this problem: mary a US citizen
- jakeonthemove 15y agoThe only things the US has left are the culture and the hype - people are either taken in by the ability to be at the epicenter (which is very important for most entrepreneurs) or by the propaganda/marketing/promises. Otherwise, it's pretty easy to start a company in other countries, especially if it's mainly operating online. The US is unbeatable in one thing, though: you can find almost anything you want at prices much lower than any other countries. That's an important advantage no matter what industry you're in, or heck, even for everyday life.
- Zimahl 15y agoWait, why did he leave? It's not like he'd get deported even if he got arrested, sure as hell wouldn't happen in California. Just continue working and have your lawyers stall and get the Visa stuff handled. You won't be able to travel outside the states and then come back in until your paperwork is done but that shouldn't be a huge problem in the internet world we live in. Or have an investor sponsor you at one of their (most likely many) companies so you have a valid job that the government can't complain about. To be fair, the government is only going by what they know. If anyone could go created an LLC, call themselves CEO and be free to work here then everyone would do it. Most likely he didn't keep up with his visa paperwork and this is the result.
- deyan 15y agoIf he doesn't leave, he risks quite a bit - he might be banned from visiting/working in the country and indeed even deported.
- deyan 15y agoUpdate: USCIS just reversed its decision and allowed back Amit into the country. (Source: he just posted on his facebook wall). I know Amit and how hard working he is and am very thankful this was resolved so quickly. At the same time, I hope it grows into something more than just a lone media frenzy-induced example. If the US is to stay competitive, it needs to reconsider its immigration policies. (Full disclosure: I am a foreigner myself).
- forgingahead 15y agoEdit -- link here: https://www.facebook.com/aaharoni/posts/10150442627214283 https://www.facebook.com/aaharoni/posts/10150442627214283
- kyledeb 15y agoI told you that would happen :)