photo credit: Hong Kong dear Edward

A bill* was introduced in the Senate (USA) on the 24th February 2010 proposing a new type of visa for immigrants who create startups and jobs in the U.S.

*The Startup Visa Act of 2010 will crate a two year visa for immigrant entrepreneurs who are able to raise a minimum of $250,000 (with $100,000 coming from a qualified venture investor or U.S. angel). After the two years, if the immigrant entrepreneur is able to create five or more jobs (not including spouse or children), attract $1 million more in investment, or produce $1 million in revenue, he or she will become a legal resident of the United States of America.

The introduction of this bill is the result of a blog post written by Paul Graham in April 2009 (one of the partners at Y Combinator). In the post, titled “The Founder Visa,” Paul explained that foreign-born students who graduate from a U.S. university can’t stay back in the U.S. to start a company. This post was passed around by bloggers, entrepreneurs and venture industry veterans until it was turned into a savvy social media campaign (including twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc). And the result is in front of us today, the campaign was a success and the bill was introduced a few days ago.

The message associated with the bill is quite straightforward – create jobs and get a green card. Even if the bill passed it isn’t going to attract a herd of entrepreneurs’ right way. It will eventually gain momentum. U.S. is welcoming entrepreneurs from outside the United States, and is promoting ideas and startups.

An interesting discussion is going on in this forum regarding the pros and cons of the bill.

Personally, I believe it’s a strategically well thought decision that would ease out rules and allow entrepreneurs all over the world to harvest their ideas in the technological hub of the world, and besides beneficial for the U.S. as well in terms of employment, innovation and growth.

For more information on this, we suggest you visit TechCrunch