The Compete America coalition (www.competeamerica.org) is the leading advocate for reform of U.S. immigration policy for highly educated foreign professionals. Our members include corporations, universities, research institutions and trade associations.

Compete America has worked with both the Administration and Congress on issues critical to immigration compliance, as well as the global mobility of talent.

The Coalition is committed to continuing its efforts to ensure that the United States has the capacity to educate and retain the talent necessary for continued innovation, job creation and expansion in a worldwide economy.

For information contact: info@competeamerica.org

America’s visa system is broken …
…and America’s
innovation economy
is the loser.

The 21st century economy will be led by those nations with the brainpower and drive to innovate and develop new technologies, new cures and new sources of energy.

The Problem

Despite the economic downturn and layoffs that have impacted many sectors of the U.S. economy, the brightest scientists, researchers, innovators and engineers in the world – whether American or foreign-born – will always be in demand and will always drive economic growth and job creation.

However, arbitrarily low visa quotas and massive backlogs in the system plague our employment- based visa process.

A study by the Kauffman Foundation estimated that more than 1,000,000 highly educated people are currently waiting for green cards, yet only 140,000 are available annually for them.

The Solution

It’s time for Congress to fix the broken immigration system by enacting legislation that supports the growth of America’s innovation economy and provides U.S. employers, research institutions and universities access to the world’s top talent.

Compete America supports legislation that would provide a permanent fix to the broken visa system for highly educated foreign professionals – including:

• The end of arbitrary obstacles to employment and permanent residency for foreign-born master’s and Ph.D. graduates from U.S. universities
• A streamlined EB green card process
• A market-based H-1B visa cap

Permanently fixing the H-1B visa and EB green card programs is critical to our continued economic
strength, future job creation and ability to compete in the world marketplace.

Expanding the Pipeline

U.S. employers make substantial contributions to promote education in America, and support technical education and training for U.S. workers.

Since 1999, U.S. employers have paid more than $2 billion in employment visa fees, funding more than 40,000 scholarships for U.S. students in math and science, and have supported science programs for 80,000 middle and high school students and training for more than 55,000 U.S. workers.

While domestic sources of talent are being expanded, U.S. employers must rely on foreign-born scientists, engineers, researchers and other professionals.

Creating American Jobs

America benefits from the contributions of highly educated, entrepreneurial professionals – regardless of where they were born. According to the National Venture Capital Association:

• In the past 15 years, immigrants have started 25% of U.S. venture-backed public companies.
• Iconic American companies – and major employers – such as Intel, Sun Microsystems, eBay, Yahoo! and Google were all founded – at least in part – by foreign nationals.
• Indian and Chinese entrepreneurs founded nearly one-third of Silicon Valley’s technology companies that accounted for $19.5 billion in sales and generated more than 72,000 jobs.

Innovative start-up companies founded by foreign-born entrepreneurs have helped put America on the leading edge of world technology and innovation. These companies provide quality jobs and opportunities for Americans – and are critical to our nation¹s economic recovery.

America’s Great Universities

U.S. colleges and universities are the best in the world – educating and training thousands of top minds from throughout the world every year.

On average, 50% or more of those graduating from U.S. universities at the master’s and Ph.D. levels in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) are foreign nationals.

It is counterproductive to educate and train the world’s great minds and then send them elsewhere to compete against us.

“Compete America…is pleading with Congress to boost…the number of employment-based green cards given to high-tech foreign workers who want to stay here. Give them all they want! Not only do our companies need them now, because we’re not training enough engineers, but they will, over time, start many more companies and create many more good jobs than they would possibly displace.
Silicon Valley is living proof of that — and where innovation happens matters. It’s still where the best jobs will be located.”

Thomas Friedman
The New York Times
May 23, 2007