Startup Act 2.0: Could it be an immigration breakthrough?

Forget the border fence or allusions to the American dream – if you want reforms of the nation's immigration policy, talk about jobs.

Talk, in other words, about the Startup 2.0 Act.

If a gridlocked Congress is to make headway on modernizing US immigration policy, it may be by fighting for reforms because of their economic imperatives rather than getting bogged down in highly charged cultural or moral debates.

"For too long we’ve been arguing immigration policy from the extremes, border security on one side and amnesty on the other side, in a debate about emotions," says John Feinblatt, chief policy adviser to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "What it needs to be is a debate about economics." 

Mayor Bloomberg is a leading member of the Partnership for a New American Economy, which recently published a study of American immigration policy's shortcomings in attracting and keeping top global talent. 

And in a debate about economics, the Startup 2.0 Act's bipartisan contingent of supporters in both houses of Congress believes it has got the data to lay low all doubters. Immigration, the group contends, is a jobs issue.

But they're running up against a record of failed attempts at immigration reform since at least 2005 – and no sign that leadership is willing to take up this fight in an election year.

What would the legislation, introduced by its House sponsors on Wednesday and by its Senate proponents late last month, do?

The bill would offer 50,000 new visas so that US-educated foreign students achieving a master’s degree or PhD in so-called STEM fields – science, technology, engineering, or mathematics – can receive green cards. It likewise offers 75,000 visas for entrepreneurs who have legally immigrated to the US to stay in the US for up to three years. Both options also include a path for the visa recipients to become permanent residents or American citizens. 

It also eliminates per-country caps on employment-based visas in order to allow skilled workers from nations with lots of applicants, such as India and China, to be able to immigrate more easily.

Those changes would shake up a system of immigration that critics deride as built for the 1960s, with too few opportunities given to talented foreigners who have studied at American universities or who want to start businesses in the United States.

"Immigration and jobs are tied together," said Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D) of California, a leading co-sponsor of the bill, during a press conference Tuesday. "And it's about time this country figured that out."

What does America at large need to figure out?

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