eb5exclusive

A group of investors in California’s Silicon Valley is lobbying lawmakers to provide visas to foreign citizens who want to establish technology start-ups in the U.S., in what would effectively constitute an expansion of the EB-5 visa program.

The proposal was introduced by Brad Feld, a managing director at the venture capital firm Foundry Group in Colorado, and Paul Kedrosky, a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation in Missouri, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The idea has gained support from Colorado Representative Jared Polis, who believes that mandating two-year visas for foreign technology entrepreneurs could help create new jobs for Americans.

“This will feed into making California more competitive by encouraging new immigrants to bring ideas to California and the U.S.,” Polis told the news source.

According to a 2007 report from researchers at Duke University, 52 percent of start-up companies based in Silicon Valley that opened between 1995 and 2005 are owned by an immigrant to the U.S.

However, many venture capitalists worry about the increasing number of entrepreneurs who have begun opening companies outside of the U.S. because they can’t obtain a visa to live and work in the country.

Nonetheless, the State Department reports that the number of approved EB-5 visas has nearly tripled between fiscal years 2008 and 2009.