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ITIC: Expansion of EB-5 visa program will bring new jobs
On Wednesday, a prominent national tech group offered resounding approval in response to the StartUp Visa Act of 2010, a measure that effectively aims to expand the EB-5 visa program by making U.S. visas available to immigrants eyeing the country as location to launch a startup.
The Information Technology Industry Council (ITIC) predicted in a letter that if the bill is passed, the tech sector would experience a particularly high level of job growth, given the track record that foreign workers have at cultivating innovative firms in the U.S., TheHill.com reports.
“Foreign-born entrepreneurs have developed thousands upon thousands of new innovations, technologies and start-up companies in America,” ITIC’s president Dean Garfield told the news source.
He added that “many went on to create such high tech companies as Intel, eBay, and Sun Microsystems, to name only a few.”
Senator John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator Dick Lugar, the committee’s ranking member, introduced the immigration bill on Wednesday.
The act proposes to grant two-year visas to foreign entrepreneurs who can show that a U.S. investor is willing to contribute at least $250,000 to their startup enterprise.