Immigration Politics – Cal 2013 – Starter Packet

Competitiveness IL

Brain drain now – CIR key to reverse the trend

Castro 4-6

[Julian. Mayor of San Antonio, TX. “Hey Congress: Get Immigration Reform Done!” Politico, 4/6/13 ln//GBS-JV]

Every year, as competition increases across the globe, American companies throw up their hands and watch engineers, nurses and entrepreneurs, who were trained in American universities, leave in frustration only to invent new products, heal the sick and bring new innovations to other countries. Now is the time for Congress to make sure their groundbreaking and job-creating efforts happen here.¶ Americans deserve a system that works, one that’s both efficient and accountable and that puts the undocumented immigrants already here – whether they live in Virginia, North Carolina, Utah or Texas – on a path to earned citizenship. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s in our nation’s and our economy’s best interests.

Immigration deal saves the economy – our ev reverse-causal

Roberts 2-11

[Cokie and Steven. “Immigration Reform Key to Averting Economic Suicide” 2/11/13 http://www.stardem.com/opinion/columns/article_44df8220-74b8-11e2-b769-0019bb2963f4.html?mode=story //GBS-JV]

¶ But legal immigrants are more important to the country's economic future and deserve equal attention. The current strictures that inhibit investors, inventors and entrepreneurs from settling in the United States might be the single most wrongheaded and self-defeating policy followed by the entire federal government. And that's saying something.¶ ¶ Every serious study shows that immigrants are job makers, not job takers. The nativists who resisted newcomers throughout our history have always been wrong, and they're wrong today. Immigrants are far more likely than homegrown workers to start businesses and secure patents. The Kauffman Foundation concludes that 52 percent of Silicon Valley startups were "immigrant-founded," and that list includes Google and Yahoo, Intel and Instagram.¶ ¶ Instead of welcoming these economic dynamos, we're driving them away. "Right now," the president said recently in Nevada, "there are brilliant students from all over the world sitting in classrooms at our top universities. They're 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. Think about that."¶ ¶ We have, and it's sickening. Countries like Australia, Germany and Canada are taking advantage of our idiocy by enticing these brilliant students with offers of rapid residency and citizenship. Other grads are simply going home, to China, India and the Philippines, where a rising middle class is making life a lot more comfortable than it was a generation ago.¶ ¶ "When America turns away a potential investor, entrepreneur or job creator, that person does not simply cease to exist," warns the R Street Institute, a pro-business think tank. "She returns to her own country and starts a business that competes directly with American companies. And she hires citizens of her own country instead of Americans."¶ ¶ It gets worse. American companies are being forced to follow that departing talent and shift operations to other countries. Microsoft points out that while it now spends 83 percent of its research budget in the U.S., "companies across our industry cannot continue to focus R&D jobs in this country if we cannot fill them here." Unless the law changes, "there is a growing possibility that unfilled jobs will migrate over time" to countries that are far friendlier to immigrant workers.¶ ¶ Fortunately, smart lawmakers in both parties are confronting the issue. Currently only 65,000 work permits, called H-1B visas, are available annually for foreign-born grads, and they are snapped up quickly in most years. A bipartisan measure, the Immigration Innovation Act, or "I-Squared," would raise that cap considerably, to 300,000 in years of rapid economic growth. Moreover, visa holders would find it easier to change jobs and their spouses would be allowed to work, a critical factor in retaining young, two-professional families.¶ ¶ Obtaining a green card and permanent residency presents an even tougher obstacle course than getting a work visa. That's especially true for immigrants from populous countries such as China and India, because employment-related permits are subject to strict national quotas. I-Squared would end those quotas, expand the total number of green cards and create new exceptions for "outstanding professors and researchers." The bill shrewdly recognizes the political pressures to produce more homegrown science and engineering whizzes, so it would impose a fee on applicants for H-1B visas and use the revenue to support local educational efforts in those fields.¶ ¶ The I-Squared legislation makes total sense. So does another initiative, also bipartisan, that would create a new visa category for immigrants willing to invest in startup companies. But, then, these ideas have made sense for years and nothing has happened.¶ ¶ The craziness has to end now. As a separate bill or as part of a larger immigration package, Congress must act, and soon. Even Mitt Romney and President Obama agreed on this issue during the campaign. We desperately need those "brilliant students" the president talks about to stay and work, to think and create, here in America. Driving them away amounts to economic suicide.

Vital to growth and competitiveness

Palomarez 3-16

[Javier Palomarez, Forbes, 3/6/13, The Pent Up Entrepreneurship That Immigration Reform Would Unleash, www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/03/06/the-pent-up-entrepreneurship-that-immigration-reform-would-unleash/print/]

The main difference between now and 2007 is that today the role of immigrants and their many contributions to the American economy have been central in the country’s national conversation on the issue. Never before have Latinos been so central to the election of a U.S. President as in 2012. New evidence about the economic importance of immigration reform, coupled with the new political realities presented by the election, have given reform a higher likelihood of passing. As the President & CEO of the country’s largest Hispanic business association, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC), which advocates for the interests of over 3 million Hispanic owned businesses, I have noticed that nearly every meeting I hold with corporate leaders now involves a discussion of how and when immigration reform will pass. The USHCC has long seen comprehensive immigration reform as an economic imperative, and now the wider business community seems to be sharing our approach. It is no longer a question of whether it will pass. Out of countless conversations with business leaders in virtually every sector and every state, a consensus has emerged: our broken and outdated immigration system hinders our economy’s growth and puts America’s global leadership in jeopardy. Innovation drives the American economy, and without good ideas and skilled workers, our country won’t be able to transform industries or to lead world markets as effectively as it has done for decades. Consider some figures: Immigrant-owned firms generate an estimated $775 billion in annual revenue, $125 billion in payroll and about $100 billion in income. A study conducted by the New American Economy found that over 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants or children of immigrants. Leading brands, like Google, Kohls, eBay, Pfizer, and AT&T, were founded by immigrants. Researchers at the Kauffman Foundation released a study late last year showing that from 2006 to 2012, one in four engineering and technology companies started in the U.S. had at least one foreign-born founder — in Silicon Valley it was almost half of new companies. There are an estimated 11 million undocumented workers currently in the U.S. Imagine what small business growth in the U.S. would look like if they were provided legal status, if they had an opportunity for citizenship. Without fear of deportation or prosecution, imagine the pent up entrepreneurship that could be unleashed. After all, these are people who are clearly entrepreneurial in spirit to have come here and risk all in the first place. Immigrants are twice as likely to start businesses as native-born Americans, and statistics show that most job growth comes from small businesses. While immigrants are both critically-important consumers and producers, they boost the economic well-being of native-born Americans as well. Scholars at the Brookings Institution recently described the relationship of these two groups of workers as complementary. This is because lower-skilled immigrants largely take farming and other manual, low-paid jobs that native-born workers don’t usually want. For example, when Alabama passed HB 56, an immigration law in 2012 aimed at forcing self-deportation, the state lost roughly $11 billion in economic productivity as crops were left to wither and jobs were lost. Immigration reform would also address another important angle in the debate – the need to entice high-skilled immigrants. Higher-skilled immigrants provide talent that high-tech companies often cannot locate domestically. High-tech leaders recently organized a nationwide “virtual march for immigration reform” to pressure policymakers to remove barriers that prevent them from recruiting the workers they need. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, fixing immigration makes sound fiscal sense. Economist Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda calculated in 2010 that comprehensive immigration reform would add $1.5 trillion to the country’s GDP over 10 years and add $66 billion in tax revenue – enough to fully fund the Small Business Administration and the Departments of the Treasury and Commerce for over two years. As Congress continues to wring its hands and debate the issue, lawmakers must understand what both businesses and workers already know: The American economy needs comprehensive immigration reform.