Not sure if it is all a coincidence but I have been dealing with all immigration issues today! I started my day writing to Rajiv [of immigration.com] about his portal. Then I see an email about one of our contributors returning to India. A very well written piece explaining why they are returning to Bangalore. All I can say is “lucky grandparents” for having such a lovely grandchild. This cute girl is sure to be pampered by her grandparents.
These days you get to read about US immigration bill getting into trouble.
- US Senate heads for crucial immigration vote
- Plenty of hurdles ahead of the immigration bill
- Immigration bill survives Senate challenges
One of the main issues of this bill is about legalizing illegal immigrants. Politicians really care about the votes (looks like this is a universal behavior across the world). When I was in the US I did get to hear a lot about how we immigrants were hurting their economy. I never agreed with that as I saw immigrants spending a significant part of their earning [buying cars, home, education etc]. We were indirectly creating more jobs.
Today I read a very well written article about immigrant Entrepreneurs – “Do Highly Educated Immigrant Entrepreneurs Help the U.S. Maintain Its Edge?“. Few highlights from the article,
- Immigrants were one of the key founders in more than a quarter of all the engineering and technology companies set up in the U.S. between 1995 and 2005. Further, it counted $52 billion in annual sales by these immigrant-founded companies, which employed 450,000 workers in 2005.
- U.S. economy depends upon the high rates of entrepreneurship and education among immigrants to “maintain its global edge.”
- 96% of the immigrant founders held graduate or postgraduate degrees, with 47% holding master’s degrees and 27% having PhDs. About three-quarters had their highest degrees in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
- Indians are among the best educated of all immigrant groups
- Large numbers of skilled Indian immigrants are returning home. This is a double loss for the U.S. One is that we lose good people. The second loss is that they will become our competitors
