Bloomberg on Immigration Reform

Please follow the link below to a very good article on Immigration Reform from Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Some relevant talking points include:

• The idea is simple: Reform the way we attract and keep talented and hard-working people from abroad to better promote economic growth. In the global economy, the countries that attract the world's best, brightest and hardest-working will grow and succeed. Those that refuse them entry will not. America has long understood this. We would not have become a global superpower without opening our doors to immigrants—and we cannot long remain one without continuing that practice. Smart, self-motivated immigrants spur the innovations and create the jobs our economy needs to thrive. Between 1995 and 2005, for example, 25% of high-tech startups in the U.S. had at least one immigrant as a key founder. Those companies alone have created 450,000 jobs—with the vast majority of them going to Americans.
• Our global competitors understand how crucial immigrants are to economic growth. They roll out the red carpet for entrepreneurs; we have no entrepreneur visa. They heavily recruit our advanced-degree students; we educate them and send them home. They woo the engineers, scientists and other skilled professionals who invent new products, launch product lines, and develop the technology of tomorrow; we erect arbitrary, senseless and bureaucratic barriers to recruitment. And we do all this even as our unemployment rate hovers around 9%.
• Creating a visa for entrepreneurs who already have funding to start their businesses will lead directly and immediately to American jobs. Visa reforms to improve temporary and permanent pathways for companies to fill the current shortages of engineers, scientists and other specialists—whose annual visa caps are often exhausted within days of becoming available—will spur growth at existing U.S. companies.
  Providing visas to the brightest foreign graduates of our universities will allow our economy to reap the rewards of their work. At the same time, allowing immigrants who succeed in college, or serve in our military, the chance to pursue a career and build their lives here legally will strengthen the long-term health of the American economy.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703387904576279293334248326.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop