AllThingsD » visas

Plan for U.S. "Entrepreneur’s Visa" Moves Forward

Corey Boles — Tue, 22 May 2012 17:41:42 +0000

A bipartisan group of senators will introduce legislation Tuesday that would seek to make it easier for foreign students who hold post-graduate degrees in math, science or engineering from American colleges to remain in the U.S. after they finish their studies.

The legislation would also create an entrepreneur’s visa to allow people who start new businesses and create jobs to remain in the country.

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Online Travel Agencies Pounce on Obama's Plan to Encourage Tourism

Tricia Duryee — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:16:08 +0000

President Obama outlined a plan today that would encourage more tourists to visit the U.S. — an announcement welcomed by online travel agencies. The plan includes deploying more consuls, reducing visa-processing times and revising the list of countries whose citizens don’t need visas.

Long-Prized Tech Visas Lose Cachet

Miriam Jordan — Sun, 08 May 2011 18:57:57 +0000

A visa program designed to supply skilled foreign workers to companies in the U.S. has slowed sharply, attracting about 50% fewer petitions so far this year than last year, and 80% fewer than in 2009.

Several factors have contributed to the decline in H-1B visas, including the lackluster pace of the U.S. recovery, more opportunities for skilled workers in their home nations and higher visa fees, which appear to have spurred Indian companies operating in the U.S. to seek fewer visas. Attacks on the program by congressional foes of U.S. immigration policies have also cast a shadow over it.

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India and China, Tech Frenemies

Miguel Gonzalez Jr. — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 15:19:48 +0000

The rivalry between China and India in the information technology sector has grown more intense this year, with India temporarily restricting imports of telecommunications equipment from China over security concerns, and Beijing grousing about New Delhi’s tightening of work visa standards.

Partha Iyengar, India research director at Gartner, said the two economic giants are missing the forest for the trees. He blogged last month that as both countries move past their traditional strengths in tech, joining forces is the smarter play — particularly as the IT sector moves into the cloud.

China’s historic strength has been focused on hardware and manufacturing, and India’s on software and services. But Iynegar said the evolution of IT toward so-called cloud computing — where computing resources aren’t maintained on-site but instead are accessed over remote connections — has rendered those paradigms moot. Beijing and New Delhi would be far better off if they cooperated in the sector, exploiting each country’s traditional business strengths and minimizing their weaknesses.

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New TechNet CEO Rey Ramsey Speaks!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:32:26 +0000

Yesterday–in a very precious San Francisco tea cafe of BoomTown’s choosing–Rey Ramsey was unfailingly and politically polite, despite my rat-a-tat questions and the shoving of a Flip video camera in his face on his first visit to California after nabbing his new job as president and CEO of TechNet.

Ramsey better get used to it, though, as he takes over the bipartisan political network of tech types, which is heavy with Silicon Valley power brokers who are often at odds.

They include an executive council with co-chairs John Chambers, CEO of Cisco (CSCO), and mega-venture capitalist John Doerr, as well as Intel (INTC) CEO Paul Otellini and Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt.

Member companies include Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo (YHOO), Apple (AAPL), Dell (DELL), craigslist, eBay (EBAY) and more.

While they are often wrangling competitively, it will be Ramsey’s job to get them on the same page on a wide range of issues they do agree on, such as visas, the need for more broadband, support for innovation and especially, blocking net neutrality regulation.

With the Obama administration more engaged in digital issues, it might be a good time for TechNet, which was founded in 1997 (I wrote the story about that in The Wall Street Journal, which dates me!). Unusually, it has not had as high a profile over the years as it should have.

But Ramsey, who has deep political ties to the new administration, also has a lot more tech savvy than past TechNet leaders. He co-founded One Economy, a laudable group that tries to bring tech to less privileged parts of society.

How to bridge the digital divide in a way that is more than words is another important issue Ramsey will have on his plate.

Here is the video of my interview with him talking about this and more (in which Ramsey mistakenly seems to say Apple was not a member of TechNet, but was referring to being on its Executive Council):

[ See post to watch video ]

L Visa–It's Everywhere You Want to Be … Especially the U.S. Tech Industry

John Paczkowski — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:50:58 +0000

Our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker. And that, in a sense, sounds funny, but it’s what we are trying to do here.”

–Attorney Lawrence Lebowitz on hiring foreign workers under the U.S. government’s Program Electronic Review Management process

How do you say “tech’s best and brightest” in Hindi? Because increasingly, India seems to be a prime source for tech-industry talent. In 2006, at least 65,000 H-1B visas were issued. And the number of L visas–which allow multinationals to transfer foreign managers and specialists within a company to U.S. offices–rose to more than 53,000.

That’s a hell of a lot of jobs. Too many, say Sens. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) and Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), who claim U.S. visa programs are being exploited to the detriment of American tech workers. Yesterday, Durbin and Grassley released data revealing that foreign outsourcing firms are among the heaviest users of both the H-1B and L visa programs. Of the top 20 L visa users in fiscal year 2006, 14 are offshore outsourcing firms. Among them, India-based Tata Consultancy Services, which received 4,887 L visas and 3,046 H-1B visas last year. The number of L visas here is particularly concerning, as Durbin notes: “The L visa is designed to give multinational companies the freedom to transfer managers and specialists within the company to their U.S. offices. But some of these companies have hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of L visa workers. I find it hard to believe that any one company has that many individuals that are legitimately being transferred within a single year.”

That does seem dubious. But, as the high-tech companies lobbying Congress for more visas note, Tata is one company of many. And if the U.S. isn’t careful and tweaks its visa program in the wrong way, it could see a lot of top talent leaving the states. “Simply put: It makes no sense to tell well-trained, highly skilled individuals–many of whom are educated at our top colleges and universities–that the United States does not welcome or value them,” Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said earlier this year. “For too many foreign students and professionals, however, our immigration policies send precisely this message.”

The iPhone, It's … Beautiful … AGH!

John Paczkowski — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:00:36 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]