The President of the United States Barack Obama has called on US Congress to create special ‘startup visas’ for foreign-born entrepreneurs currently studying in American universities.
Obama said there was a need for a startup visa to retain foreign students who want to found startups, as long as they met criteria such as meeting a certain headcount and raising a minimum amount of financing. He added that those who launch startups which continue to grow could remain in the States permanently.
Making the remarks during a speech on immigration in Las Vegas, the US President said: “Right now there are brilliant students from all around the world sitting in classrooms at our top universities. They are earning degrees in the fields of the future like engineering and computer science. But once they finish school, once they earn that diploma, there’s a good chance they’ll have to leave our country.”
He highlighted Instagram co-founder Michel Krieger, originally from Brazil, as an example of a foreign student who went on to successfully launch a startup in the US. But he also said there are many other immigrants currently studying at top US universities who don’t receive the same opportunities and have to launch their startups abroad.
Obama added: “Right now in one of those classrooms there are students wrestling with how to turn their big idea — their Intel or Instagram — into a big business. We’re giving them all the skills they need to figure that out, but then we’re going to turn around and tell them to start that business and create those jobs in India or China or Mexico or someplace else. That’s not how you grow new industries in America. That’s how you give new industries to our competitors.”
