Tag Archives: United States

Immigration Blog

Indian-Born Executives Lead New List of Top Immigrant-Founded Companies

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New research reveals that many of America’s top companies that have received venture capital have immigrant founders. An impressive group of Indian-born entrepreneurs head the list.

I authored a recently-released study (find it here) that concluded, “Immigrants are increasingly important in driving growth and innovation in America, as evidenced by the role played by foreign-born founders and key personnel in the nation’s breakthrough companies.” The study found, “Immigrants have started nearly half of America’s 50 top venture-funded companies and are key members of management or product development teams in almost 75 percent of our country’s leading cutting-edge companies.”

To conduct the research I interviewed executives and company personnel and gathered information on the top 50 venture-backed companies in the United States. Those 50 companies had been ranked by the firm VentureSource using criteria such as the track record of the management and investors and recent revenue growth.

I found that the companies with at least one immigrant founder averaged about 150 jobs per company in the U.S. Overall, 23 out of 50, or 46 percent of the top venture-funded companies in America had at least one immigrant founder.

The leading source country for immigrant founders was India, followed by Israel, Canada and Iran. There were also immigrant founders on the list from Italy, South Africa, Greece, Norway, Germany, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Switzerland and France.

Here are the companies on the top 50 venture-funded list that had at least one founder born in India:

Aster Data Systems, whose founders include Tasso Argyros (Greece) and Mayank Bawa (India). The company, based in San Carlos, California, employs approximately 100 people. The focus of the company is providing data management, as well as advanced analytics, for employers.

Chegg Inc., based in Santa Clara, California, has become a well-known company for its textbook rental service. It has about 150 employees. Chegg’s founders are Aayush Phumbhra (India) and Osman Rashid (U.K.).

Glam Media, based in Brisbane, California, had 8 founders. Two of the founders were born in India, Samir Arora and Raj Narayan. Following a recent acquisition the company employs about 500 people. Glam works with about 2,500 website partners in the U.S. and Europe. It helps facilitate web advertising in niche and “mid-tail” websites for name brand advertisers.

Umesh Maheshwari and Varun Mehta, both born in India, started Nimble Storage, based in San Jose, California. The company employs 55 people and focuses on disaster-recovery systems, backups and storage.

Suniva, based in Norcross, Georgia, sells solar cells and modules. It was founded by Ajeet Rohatgi, born in India, and employs 190 people.

Xactly, based in San Jose, California, was founded by Christopher Cabrera and Satish Palvai (India). The company sells Internet-based software that can be used for sales compensation. It employs 140 people

Xsigo Systems, also based in San Jose, California, provides equipment and software for the management of datacenters. Employing 110 people, it was started by three brothers born in India, R.K. Anand, Ashok Krishnamurthi, and S.K. Vinod.

“Today’s breakthrough companies are often founded by immigrants or at least employ a foreign-born scientist, engineer or CEO crucial to business growth and product development,” the report noted. “Executives say access to talent from around the world is even more important to companies in their emerging growth phase.”

A key finding of the research is that our country gains when we are open to talented people, without regard to their place of birth. “Policies that help retain talent in the United States are likely to yield both more startup companies and the personnel needed to create more jobs and innovation in America,” the study concluded.

Immigration Blog

Indians and Illegal Immigration

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The vast majority of Indians come to the United States legally and stay here as legal visa holders. Many become permanent residents (green card holders) and then U.S. citizens. Indeed, in terms of income and education, it would be difficult to find a more successful immigrant group in U.S. history.

There are also Indians in the United States illegally. Such individuals remain a small part of the overall illegal immigrant population. Still, it is a segment worth exploring to help us better understand the immigration issue.

According to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Indians made up only 1.9 percent of the illegal immigrant population in the United States as of January 2010. (Here is a link to that report.) There were approximately 200,000 Indians not in legal status in the U.S. out of a total illegal immigrant population of 10,790,000, according to a DHS report released in February 2011.

Table 1

Illegal Immigrant Population by Country (2010)

Country of Birth Estimated Unauthorized Immigrant Population (2010)
Mexico 6,640,000
El Salvador 620,000
Guatemala 520,000
Honduras 330,000
Philippines 280,000
India 200,000
Ecuador 180,000
Brazil 180,000
Korea 170,000
China 130,000
All Countries 10,790,000

                                               Source: Department of Homeland Security.

A Country by Country Look

One can see by examining Table 1 that Mexico dominates the overall illegal immigration population in the United States, representing over 60 percent, with 6.6 million. The next three countries have far smaller numbers of illegal immigrants in America: El Salvador with 620,000, Guatemala with 520,000 and Honduras with 330,000. These figures are as of January 2010, which means it’s possible newer data could yield slightly different results.

The Philippines has the fifth most illegal immigrants with 280,000, followed by India in 6th place with 200,000. Illegal immigrants from the Philippines and India largely come to the United States legally on visas and then overstay their visas. Unlike Mexicans, Indians cannot simply cross a border and find themselves in the United States. While it is possible some may have gone to Canada or Mexico and entered America illegally, it is more likely Indian illegal immigrants were once in some type of legal status and lost that status.

Changes in Indian Unauthorized Immigrant Population Over Time

In 1990, Indians made up an estimated 0.8 percent of the unauthorized immigrant population, with only 28,000 illegal immigrants, according to the then Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). It’s possible the 28,000 figure is a low estimate of the number of illegal immigrants from India in 1990. That is because an initial INS estimate of the number of Indians in the country illegally in the year 2000 was only 70,000. However, a few years later that figure was revised to 120,000.

Measuring the number of illegal immigrants in the United States is, by definition, not easy. It is even harder to make accurate estimates of smaller subsets of that population. Table 2 shows the overall number of Indians in the United States in the “unauthorized immigrant population” – the term used by the Department of Homeland Security – in 1990, 2000 and 2010. The numbers indicate the Indian population not in legal status has risen from 28,000 in 1990 to 200,000 in 2000.

Table 2

                                         Indian Unauthorized Immigrant Population: 1990 to 2010

Year Indian Percentage of Total
1990 28,000 0.8 percent
2000 120,000 1.4 percent
2010 200,000 1.9 percent

                   Source: Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Illegal Immigration Issue Remains Important

Whether someone is waiting for a green card or is an employer of immigrants, it would do well to remember that illegal immigration remains important in the American public’s mind. It drives the overall debate on immigration. In past years, disagreement on whether or not to provide legal status to the illegal immigrant population scuttled attempts to provide more green cards for high-skilled immigrants, including many Indians. The issue of illegal immigration is not going away.

Immigration Blog

News that Pakistan Spies on Immigrants Shows Risks Faced by Émigrés

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The New York Times recently reported the disturbing news that Pakistani immigrants to the United States may not feel safe from their government – even when living thousands of miles away from the homeland they departed. The news fits a pattern that shows immigrants often face risks most native-born American may find hard to fathom.

Credit: indiavision.comThe Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) discovered that Mohammed Tasleem, an attaché in Pakistan’s New York consulate, was engaging in systematic intimidation of Pakistani immigrants and temporary visa holders on behalf of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). “Mr. Tasleem, they discovered, had been posing as an F.B.I. agent to extract information from Pakistanis living in the United States and was issuing threats to keep them from speaking openly about Pakistan’s government,” reports the New York Times. “His activities were part of what government officials in Washington, along with a range of Pakistani journalists and scholars, say is a systematic ISI campaign to keep tabs on the Pakistani diaspora inside the United States.”

The article describes how at conferences and seminars in the U.S. individuals would identify themselves as working for ISI and sometimes ask threatening questions. “The ISI guys will look into your eyes and will indirectly threaten you by introducing themselves,” the author said. “The ISI makes sure that they are present in every occasion relating to Pakistan, and in some cases they pay ordinary Pakistanis for attending events and pass them information.”

That’s not the end of the story. “Several Pakistani journalists and scholars in the United States interviewed over the past week said that they were approached regularly by Pakistani officials, some of whom openly identified themselves as ISI officials,” according to the New York Times. “The journalists and scholars said the officials caution them against speaking out on politically delicate subjects like the indigenous insurgency in Baluchistan or accusations of human rights abuses by Pakistani soldiers. The verbal pressure is often accompanied by veiled warnings about the welfare of family members in Pakistan, they said.”

Here is some free advice for the members of Pakistan’s government: If you don’t want people to accuse Pakistani soldiers of human rights abuses then do your best to make sure such individuals do not abuse human rights. Attempting to intimidate people who now live and work in the United States is counterproductive, making Americans less sympathetic to policy arguments that may be offered by Pakistan.

Visits to international students and scholars by officials of other governments are not unheard of. There are specific provisions in the U.S. immigration code designed to protect asylum seekers who fear repression under China’s one-child policy. Stories of Chinese government officials visiting one or more pregnant Chinese students in the United States helped make the case for such provisions.

It is difficult for immigrants or temporary visa holders to the United States to ignore threats (implied or otherwise) made against family members still living in their homeland. One can imagine the guilt experienced by someone who feels that by exercising the right to freedom of speech in America he or she is putting at risk a family member back home.

Middle Eastern governments are also known to keep tabs on nationals studying or working in the United States, although reports indicate a degree of subtleness in how they deal with such individuals in America. But as with the case of Pakistan, when Americans become aware of attempts to intimidate people working or studying in the U.S. they look unkindly on whichever government is doing the intimidating.

Immigration Blog

What Do Employers Find on U.S. College Campuses?

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Policy toward employment-based immigration is often mired in accusations that companies ignore U.S. citizens in the recruitment process. In reality, the issue is not companies hiring foreign nationals instead of Americans. It’s that when companies recruit on college campuses they find a high proportion of students in important disciplines are foreign nationals.

In 2007, U.S. universities awarded about half of master’s degrees and 73 percent of Ph.D.s in electrical engineering to foreign nationals, according to the National Science Foundation. Patents produced by foreign nationals are indicators that international students completing their studies not only make up a large proportion of new potential entrants to the labor market but also end up producing important innovations.

As Tables 1 and 2 show a substantial percentage of fulltime graduate students at U.S. universities in important fields are foreign nationals on student visas. Such visas do not allow an individual to stay and work in the United States long-term. To work for years in the United States an international student generally would need an H-1B visa.

Table 1

Percentage of Foreign Nationals in U.S. Graduate School Programs

in Selected Fields (2006)

Field Percent of Fulltime Graduate Students with Foreign

Student VisasTotal Fulltime Graduate Students with Foreign Student VisasStatistics

60.8%

1,960

Economics (except agricultural)

59.6%

5,966

Computer Sciences

58.4%

16,801

Cardiology

50.0%

16

Physics

45.9%

5,707

Chemistry

40.7%

7,712

Mathematics/Applied Mathematics

39.4%

4,862

Pharmaceutical Sciences

36.8%

1,650

Radiology

31.5%

58

 

Source: National Science Foundation/Division of Science Resources Statistics, Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering. Tables 18 and 21 of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering: Fall 2006.


                                                                                    Table 2

Percentage of Foreign Nationals in U.S. Engineering Programs (2006)

Field Percent Fulltime Graduate Students with Foreign Student Visas Fulltime Graduate Students with Foreign Student Visas
Petroleum Engineering

83.9%

543
Electrical Engineering

68.2%

18,683
Mining Engineering

56.9%

103
Agricultural Engineering

56.6%

505
Industrial Engineering

56.5%

3,625
Mechanical Engineering

52.4%

6,640
Chemical Engineering

52.1%

3,241
Metall./Matl. Engineering

51.7%

2,390
Engineering Science

48.0%

795
Engineering (other)

44.6%

1,830
Civil Engineering

42.5%

5,554
Aerospace Engineering

39.3%

1,327
Biomedical Engineering

34.4%

1,948
Nuclear Engineering

33.0%

300
ENGINEERING (TOTAL)

54.1% 

47,484 

Source: National Science Foundation/Division of Science Resources Statistics, Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering. Tables 18 and 21 of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering: Fall 2006.


In computer sciences, statistics and economics, international students made up 58 to 60 percent of the fulltime graduate students on U.S. campuses in 2006. In mathematics (39 percent), chemistry (41 percent) and physics (46 percent) the proportion of international students in graduate programs is also significant. In graduate level engineering programs in the United States, 47,484 of the 87,818 fulltime students (54 percent) were in the U.S. on temporary student visas in 2006.

When an employer recruits at a U.S. college and finds an outstanding international student a company can file for him or her to be on OPT (Optional Practical Training) for 12 months, with the possibility of an extension for an additional 17 months. At some point in that process, the individual could be hired on an H-1B visa, if one is available. If the individual was educated outside the country or OPT is not appropriate or the best option for that person, the employer would generally attempt to hire them directly in H-1B status.

Depending on their size, U.S. employers hire either all U.S. workers or some combination of Americans and foreign nationals. When companies recruit on campuses, they find a high percentage of foreign nationals in key fields. To ignore all these candidates because they were not born in America would concede many talented individuals to competitors. It would be difficult for companies to remain successful with such a policy.

Immigration Blog

Employers May Soon Need Approval From a Federal Database for New Hires

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It is surprising that only months after taking office on a platform of smaller government, House Republicans appear poised to enact a program that some consider to be quite a big government solution to illegal immigration. The legislation is H.R 2164, sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chair Lamar Smith (R-Texas). It bears watching in the coming weeks.

E-Verify is an electronic employment verification that allows employers to send, generally speaking, the name and social security number of a potential new hire and get back an answer from the federal government as to whether that individual is legally authorized to work in the United States.

The key issue is not whether such a system should exist. The issue is whether the federal government should require every employer in America to use E-Verify, as mandated in H.R. 2164.

In theory it may make sense to have such a system for checking new hires. But in practice it may be an entirely different story. A new report I completed details some of the problems with making E-Verify mandatory. (A copy of the report can be found here.)

First, it is unclear whether the system will actually reduce illegal immigration in any significant way. A government report by the consulting group Westat found about half of illegal immigrants show up in the system as work authorized, primarily, it’s assumed, by using a false identity. In addition to identify fraud the system could be thwarted by employers that decide not to submit the names of employees suspected of being illegal immigrants.

Second, the errors in the databases are likely to affect individuals here lawfully who seek jobs but are mistakenly shown by the system to be not authorized to work. This could be a major problem, since even under the current system employers often go against protocols and “pre-screen” applicants. That means individuals may not even realize why they are not called back after a job interview.

Misspellings of names and naturalization can lead to errors in the database. It is not surprising that someone with the name Mukherjee or Chidambaram is more likely to have a database error than a guy named Smith or Jones.

By some estimates foreign-born individuals are far more likely to experience problems with the Social Security or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services databases than native-born. “E-Verify error rates are 30 times higher for naturalized U.S. citizens and 50 times higher for legal nonimmigrants than for native-born U.S. citizens,” according to Congressional testimony by Tyler Morgan of the National Immigration Law Center.

Third, employers should be aware that H.R. 2164 vastly increases fines not only for employing illegal immigrants but also for what may be considered paperwork violations or a failure to submit an individual through the E-Verify system. The legislation puts in place a system more complex than simply checking new hires. An employer is also required to check existing employees under certain circumstances, including if an employee starts working on a state or federal contract or is within 30 days of work authorization expiring. A government allegation that workers were misclassified as independent contractors (and not required to be checked through E-Verify) rather than as employees could potentially trigger fines of at least tens of thousands of dollars.

The House legislation provides a short window for this to be up and running. The largest employers would be required to use E-Verify within 6 months, employers with between 20 to 499 employees within 18 months, and those with 1 to 19 employees would be required to use E-Verify within 24 months. A Senate bill, sponsored by Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) has a shorter window – one year for all employers – and requires all existing employees to be verified as well.

The House legislation could be marked up in the Judiciary Committee as early as this month. If it became law it could mark an enormous change in the operation of the U.S. workplace. Supporters of the bill view that as a good thing. Others are not so sure.