25% of Start-up Firms: Immigrants at work

Foreigners in the US are responsible for nearly 25 percent of start-up American firms, findings of a latest research by Harvard, NYU and Duke, UC-Berkeley reveal.

No wonder, several policy makers are being asked for increasing the quota for highly skilled worker visas in the US.

As per the study, out of the total start-up companies established between the year 1995 and 2005 in Silicon Valley, nearly 52 percent were by foreigners.
And the number of patents filed by immigrants in the US for the same period is said to be 25.6 percent which is up by 337 percent since the year 1998.

Its not just in the US that the immigrant investors have been found to be making significant contribution towards start-up firms, in fact, foreigners seem to be leading in investments in several other nations too including Canada.
According to reports, a Vancouver entrepreneur group has been asking the federal government for starting ‘startup visas’ for foreign investors wanting to come and invest in Canada.
In a similar move, the US government is being asked for creation of a US startup visa and the bill is being sponsored by US Senators Richard Lugar, Republican of Indians and John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts.

The bill will provide any foreign entrepreneur a temporary US work visa if he obtains a minimum amount of $100,000 for investment for gaining US permanent residency.
In addition, the immigrant entrepreneur will also be responsible for creating at least five new jobs in the US in the period of two years, generate venture capital exceeding $1 million or $1 million sales each year.
Such changes in the federal policy of the US which favor potential foreign entrepreneurs would lead to growth and innovation in the US, agree several experts including a law professor at Yale University, Peter Schuck, and corporate secretary and vice president of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, John Tyler.

Several nations like Australia, Germany, the UK and some other European nations already have changed their immigration process in order to allow foreign immigrant investors and high-skilled immigrants into their nations.

Source:  http://www.canadaupdates.com/content/immigrants-behind-quarter-us-start-firms-16233.html

No Irish Need Apply: They are a Barbarous People

Dedicated only to leisure and laziness, this is truly a barbarous people.

Irish Immigrants: Send them HOME !

They are stealing our jobs.  They aren't paying any taxes.  They are a drain on our society.  They are having babies so they can claim social services and stay in our country.  They don't speak our language.  Send them HOME !

Irish Immigrants 1860s

In 1845, the great potato rot touched off a mass migration. The disaster eliminated the sole subsistence of millions of peasants, thrusting them over the edge of starvation. For five weary years, the crops remained undependable, and famine swept through the land. Untold thousands perished, and the survivors, destitute of hope, wished only to get away (Handlin, 1972).
The only mode of escape was emigration. Starving families that could not pay landlords faced no alternative but to leave the country in hopes of a better future. And thus the steadily scaling number of Irish who entered the U.S. between 1820 and 1830 skyrocketed in the 1840s, nearly 2 million came in that decade. The flow persisted increasingly for another five years, as the first immigrants began to earn the means of sending for relatives and friends. The decade after 1855 showed a subside in the movement, but smaller numbers continued to arrive after the Civil War. Altogether, almost 3.5 million Irishmen entered the U.S. between 1820 and 1880.
Emigrating to the U.S. wasn't the magical solution for most of the immigrants. Peasants arrived without resources, or capital to start farms or businesses. Few of them ever accumulated the resources to make any meaningful choice about their way of life. Fortunately for them, the expansion of the American economy created heavy demands for muscle grunt. The great canals, which were the first links in the national transportation system were still being dug in the 1820s and 1830s, and in the time between 1830 and 1880, thousands of miles of rail were being laid. With no bulldozers existing at the time, the pick and the shovel were the only earth-moving equipment at the time. And the Irish laborers were the mainstay of the construction gangs that did this grueling work. In towns along the sites of work, groups of Irish formed their small communities to live in.
More than 2.6 million Irish came in the decades after 1860.

Source: 
http://library.thinkquest.org/20619/Irish.html

A Broken System, a Broken Family.

Our current immigration system is broken.  It is breaking apart many families such as Tony and Janine's.  They have been trying to work within the system for years to get legalized, yet have only met with one roadblock after another.  See their story.

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A comprehensive approach to immigration would greatly improve things for everyone.