What is Start-Up Act 2.0? (Immigration Bill for Entrepreneurs)

Passport

Immigration law is undoubtedly a controversial subject. As a start-up business owner who is not a US citizen, you must first think of an appropriate visa that will allow you to legally work in the US.  Currently, there is no perfect visa for start-up owners (I will write about options available at the moment at a later date). Congress is aware of this problem and there are several bills of interest pending.

The bill of most interest for entrepreneurs is called the Start-Up Visa Act 2.0 which was introduced in May 2012. It is based upon the Start-Up Act introduced by Sen. Moran and Warner last year. U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) along with Steve Case, Revolution LLC CEO and member of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, and Robert Litan of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, unveiled this bipartisan legislation.
Among other things, the Start-Up Act 2.0 aims to do the following:
1. Create an Entrepreneur’s Visa for legal immigrants.
2. create a new STEM visa so that U.S.-educated foreign students who graduate with a master’s or a doctorate in science, technology, engineering or mathematics can receive a green card and stay in this country, launch businesses and create jobs.
3. It eliminates the per-country caps for employment-based immigrant visas.

Here is a link to what the senators said about the bill when it was introduced. We will update you as more information becomes available. Watch this space!