Bloomberg, Arrington Want More Opportunity for Immigrant Entrepreneurs, but What About Homegrown Talent?

An article by Navarrow    View Comments

According to TechCrunch’s Mike Harrington, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has called for immigration reform that favors creating greater opportunities for immigrants because of their job creating potential here in the United States. Harrington reports:

The Mayor proposed green cards for graduates with advanced degrees in essential
fields; a new visa for entrepreneurs with investors ready to invest capital in
their job-creating idea; more temporary and permanent visas for highly skilled
workers…The Mayor also announced the results of a study conducted by the
Partnership for a New American Economy – a bipartisan group of business
leaders and mayors from across the country – that found more than 40 percent
of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or the children of
immigrants and those companies employ more than 10 million people worldwide
and have combined revenues of $4.2 trillion.

I agree that immigration is an important issue that ought to be addressed in the most civil and proactive way possible. But at the same time we’re promoting greater opportunity for foreign nationals, we should also be supporting homegrown talent. There are thousands of entrepreneurs here in the states that are ready to take their ideas to market, but perhaps lack sufficient capital or infrastructural support to make their businesses a reality.

It’s great to encourage people from other countries to come to the U.S. in the hopes that they’ll create more job-rendering opportunities for Americans. It’s even better toempower Americans to be job-creators themselves. That spirit of American innovation is something that stands as the hallmark of our national identity. Sure, our kids need to increase proficiencies in science, math, technology and engineering – the key fields that will be fueling our 21st century economy – but creativity, ingenuity, those are skills that cannot be taught, and they must be fostered in order for people to flourish.

Harrington says what many of us already know: immigrants fuel the Silicon Valley ecosystem. Instead of continuing to perpetuate an increasingly one-sided equation,especially when America’s GDP is increasingly reliant on the success of the tech sector,isn’t it time we begin investing in our own citizens here at home just as much, if not more so, than we do in people from other countries?