I assume what they really mean by Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups is that 51% of $1B+ U.S. startups have at least one immigrant founder, right? (as opposed to 51% of unicorn founders are immigrants)
I do think that America--and indeed any country--should allow for, and advocate, that the best and brightest from around the world be allowed to legally immigrate.
But I agree with what capocannoniere is implying, that no one builds that kind of success alone.
Anti-immigrant policies, including ones sold on rhetoric about illegal immigration, often include changes to reduce levels of legal immigration or erect new cosrs and/or procedural obstacles to it, so that people who were legal immigrants under the old system would be prevented or discouraged from legal immigration under the new system.
http://registrar.calpoly.edu/content/stu_info/credit_byexam
http://admissions.utah.edu/apply/special-credit/challenge-a-...
Also I did a duckduckgo search (I don't use Google due to their TOS and my perception of their ethics) and could find nothing on the first page of results to support what you were saying which is why I asked.
Please advise.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/07/politics/cotton-perdue-immigra...
I've read the article (although I don't put much weight in CNN's reporting) so I went straight to the copy of the bill (http://static.politico.com/ad/1b/a981934c4278bfef730dc51b341...) and then read some commentary on it from both sides of the political spectrum.
Okay so... firstly the assertion that limits to illegal immigration impacts pathways for legal immigration. I'm sorry but I'm still not fully convinced that this example shows your assertion to be the case. I concede however that it cannot be ruled out--so basically I'm still reserving judgement on this point and now that I'm aware of it I will definitely be keeping an eye out for any new data.
So why reserve judgement? Well you specifically said, "Anti-immigrant policies, including ones sold on rhetoric about illegal immigration, often include changes to reduce levels of legal immigration or erect new cosrs (sic) and/or procedural obstacles to it, so that people who were legal immigrants under the old system would be prevented or discouraged from legal immigration under the new system."
The RAISE Act is an entirely separate proposed piece of legislation and therefore it does not hold as a clear example of cause and effect. You could use abduction and say that the presidential campaign of Donald Trump and the resulting political climate post his win has brought immigration as a whole into the spotlight, therefore there is a likelihood for a reduction immigration, including previously legal forms of immigration. While I would agree with that line of reasoning I would still reserve calling it a truth and I wouldn't adopt it into my belief structure as I generally hold out for cause and effect reasoning based on verifiable facts before accepting something as a 'truth'.
As to the RAISE Act itself, I think it actually sounds rather sensible. In essence they want to shift more towards entry through work merit as in, prioritising those with education and qualifications, similar to the points system in Canada and Australia. That means cutting back significantly on the low skill migrants and removing the diversity visa completely.
Would this hurt the number of people who go on to make a billion dollar company? I doubt it... I'm sure those people would go through the system legally and would be able to do so on merit. Would this hurt the average American? Personally I believe that it wouldn't... in fact I think it would help the 97.3 million Americans who fall into a low-income category, defined as those earning between 100 and 199 percent of the poverty level (source: 2010 US Census).
If considering the effect the RAISE Act would have through the lens of supply and demand economics... less low skilled labour (due to a reduction of low skilled legal immigrants) would lead to more supply of low skilled job openings (which would need to be filled by the existing American workforce).
I should think that any government must consider the impact of legislation would have on low income households and the country's poverty line. In my mind there is no greater social program than a job and that Sir Thomas Browne's words ring true:
"But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves? 'Charity begins at home,' is the voice of the world;".
As to the 'reduce legal family immigration', the RAISE Act retain immigration preference for spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. It would eliminate preferences for the extended adult family members including:
• Adult parents of U.S. citizens
• Adult siblings of U.S. citizens
• Unmarried adult children of U.S. citizens
• Married adult children of U.S. citizens, and
• Unmarried adult children of legal permanent residents.
I don't see how this is unfair. I get that immigration rights would cover your immediate family unit--especially minors--but why should it automatically cover adult children when they could apply under the same merit based system as other adults?
I am not arguing in favor of an immigrant ban in any way, I think it's a bad idea, but when a headline is trying to argue against the ban the president has put forward and lists people from Canada and South Africa... well I mean yeah they're technically immigrants, but they wouldn't have been banned by the policy anyway. Now, Arash Ferdowsi, Iranian co-founder of Dropbox, that's your success story. Unfortunately the number of billion-dollar startups with founders born in countries listed in the travel ban is far smaller so it'd make for a worse headline.
I feel the inclusion of people like Camp and Musk hurts the point the story is trying to make. We have tons of important people from countries affected by the immigration ban, and it'd be worth it to highlight those people rather than just any immigrant. The president has never called for banning all immigration from any country regardless of anything. So the argument is disingenuous.
I think the point of the article still stands. The current immigration ban is limited to a handful of countries, but xenophobic bigotry generally extends towards anyone not born in the US.
The headline itself is somewhat disingenuous. It might as well read "51% of people who aggressively seek opportunity are highly successful." Now just swap out 'people' with 'immigrant' and use it to veil the actual motive. ... Disingenuous indeed.
A better way to make the argument would be to identify what these successful immigrants have in common and suggest that these attributes might be good filters for permitting immigration. But I suspect that the results would not validate the author's true motivations.
At least from a cultural perspective for the majority of legal immigrants I'm sure day-to-day life isn't much different than before the wall plan. There are still more than enough good people in the US. Especially in urban areas where most immigrants end up.
As someone who has applied for an American Visa, my main concern would be more about the available Visas suddenly changing after I've established a life there. The process is quite complicated and stressful, and the T1 visa was the most common one for my type of work. For T1 you had to get it renewed each year.
That was a concern even in a pre-Trump US. The immigration policies there definitely need some work. And have for a long time. I was happy to see Trump saying he was looking at Canada's immigration policy (where I'm from) as a good example.
It will always be stressful for legal immigrants when the immigration policies are currently in political flux.
Yes, Garrett Camp is an immigrant. He just happens to be white and from Canada and is thus perceived less as "those other people" and more "American" because he blends in. If he came from Sudan would you consider him to be "more of an immigrant"? Your own comment implies this bias even if you didn't mean for it to sound that way.
I see your point, but I disagree in this situation. If there was no context around the discussion, you'd be exactly right. But there is context, and the context is the immigration ban put in place by the president. That immigration ban excludes people from specific countries. This article was very obviously written to show how important immigration is as a way to counter the reasoning that bore the immigration ban, but I feel it cheapens the point when you include immigrants who are not part of the ban.
Basically, if the point of the article was just "immigrants are good", then yes, you're right. But since the point of the article is "this immigration ban is bad!", it makes sense to restrict the discussion to people from countries actually listed on the ban.
To put it another way, what if the article mentioned Canadian immigrants, South African immigrants, German immigrants, British immigrants.... but no Iranians? No Syrians. No Iraqis. The conclusion of the article could then be portrayed as "see? muslim immigrants don't do anything useful anyway! ban them!" For every immigrant you put in the article that isn't affected by the ban, the case for the ban becomes stronger. That's why I think we should limit our conversation to the context implied by the article's conclusion.
Yes, your point only makes sense if the context of the immigration topic was limited to a travel ban in the countries that the Trump administration is currently focused on. But there is an even larger context of this administration's statements regarding immigration. If you are looking to apply larger contexts then keep in mind Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions' statements regarding immigration:
-- Steve Bannon: "When two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think... A country is more than an economy. We’re a civic society." (He dislikes Asian executives in SV).
-- Steve Bannon: "Don’t we have a problem with legal immigration? Twenty percent of this country is immigrants. Is that not the beating heart of this problem?" (He dislikes legal immigration from any country, not just muslim majority countries).
-- Jeff Sessions: "The H-1B program is a “tremendous threat” to American professionals." (He wishes to curb visa programs for highly educated and professional immigrants).
At the end of the day, an immigrant is an immigrant. If Steve Bannon or yourself are accepting Canadian and South African immigrants' contributions, but wish to isolate those contributions from those of Sudanese, Muslim or Asian immigrants then there is a deeper bias problem that must be talked about. The current travel ban might be of 6 muslim majority countries, but you cannot ignore the very real statements by the Trump administration about their intention to stop legal immigration from as many sources as possible.
When you keep that context in mind, it makes less sense to add nuance to the situation and start isolating contributions of immigrants based on the countries they are from.
It's like No True Scotsman fallacy but applied in converse in terms of "true immigrant".
Camp is an immigrant. Case closed.
>"The research finds that 51 percent, or 44 out of 87, of the country’s $1 billion startup companies had at least one immigrant founder."
link: http://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Bi...