Immigration Reform 2013 News: Immigration Policy Changes Would Help US Technology Sector, Says New Study, Tech Experts

The debate on immigration has garnered a push from a new advocate who could benefit from skilled immigrant labor--the technology sector.

The Obama administration has been enacting and proposing new laws since January began that are aimed at reforming the immigration system.

The administration changed a provision in immigration policy recently that allows certain immigrants with families in the U.S. an extended stay in the country while applying for visas, as well as proposing new legislation that would create new visas which would allow highly-skilled immigrants to stay in the U.S.

For the tech sector, that could mean a major difference, as it would entice some of the more highly-skilled foreigners to stay aboard on U.S. companies rather than simply obtaining their advanced degrees in the U.S. and returning home afterwards.

A new study from the nonprofit policy research firm Brookings Institution recommends that lawmakers change the current immigration policy in order to "encourage entrepreneurs to come to America."

As evidence, the study points to research that illustrates a growth in foreign-born businessmen starting up U.S. companies in California's Silicon Valley as compared to immigrants starting up tech businesses in the U.S. as a whole.

When compared, the study shows between 1995 to 2005, roughly 52 percent of the new tech start-ups in Silicon Valley had a foreign-born owner, while less than half, or 25 percent, of the technology and engineering businesses launched in the United States were started by immigrant or foreign businessmen.

The study also recommends supporting the DREAM Act that allows young immigrants to stay in the U.S. Additionally, lowering the minimum investment amounts that immigrants must invest in startups to gain green cards would create more job opportunities, the study states.

"We should be doing everything we can to encourage people who have the capacity to create tech companies to stay. Instead, we make it difficult with things like per country visa caps and limited student visas," writes Business Insider's Max Nisan.

Gary Shapiro, president and chief executive officer of the electronics research group Consumer Electronics Association, said that business owners "need reform desperately" during a Tuesday morning panel on immigration and technology hosted by Politico.

"Immigrants create economic activity," Shapiro said, "highly skilled or not."

Because of the way that immigration is currently structured, technology companies have claimed that they are unable to fill thousands of engineering jobs, as there are not enough American skilled workers to fill that quota and the shortage of visas to foreign skilled workers makes hiring immigrants that much harder.

"The whole debate and how it is handled is really on the other issues swirling around," former Michigan Gov. John Engler, president of the Business Roundtable, said at the meeting. "The reality is we have jobs out there that people who are here aren't going to do."

Representative Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who was at the meeting, put the blame on the Obama administration for rejecting a STEM bill in 2012 that would have given immigrants with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math - or "STEM" fields - permanent visas. The bill was blocked by Senate Democrats in December.

However, U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren , D-Calif., countered that the Senate refused to consider the bill because it would have eliminated the diversity visa lottery program that gives visas to people seeking U.S. residency who come from countries with low immigration.

In order to move forward, Lofgren said that legislators needed to come to a consensus on a solution to the immigration problem instead of fighting among themselves.

"Let's fix this," she said. "We can do this."