A third of venture-backed IPOs between 2006 and 2012 had an immigrant founder

That says very little. There are such a wide range of immigrants: young immigrants, older immigrants, poor immigrants, wealthy immigrants, undocumented immigrants, documented with a green card. If someone relatively wealthy immigrates here and uses the "millionaire's visa" and invests in a business, they get a green card. Well, that counts toward the statistic.

Also, the article has it TOTALLY WRONG about immigration history. Immigration was relatively loose until the Civil War, and then it was slowly closed until in the late 1800s, restrictions really increased substantially until the 1940s, particularly for Asians. Then, after WW2 it eased up, and in 1965 racial discrimination in immigration quotas was made illegal by the Civil Rights Act.

That created a new phase of global immigration, and things stayed the same until 1986 with the IRCA. That closed off some forms of immigration, specifically affecting illegal immigration. In the same time frame, it became easier for wealthy entrepreneurs to immigrate (mainly the ones from Hong Kong), and then H1B started, and it became easier for technically skilled workers to get worker visas and later green cards.

So it's not as the article said, that the doors were wide open, and then they have slowly been closing. That is at best an error, and at worst, a total deception. After reading that, I stopped, because if the writer can't get that basic history correct, they don't know squat.

(I should add that I am in favor of increasing immigration, but opposed to the current trend of expanding guest worker quotas.)

Why is this not news to me? Every immigrant I know is harder working than every us born person I know. America - wealth has made us lazy/complacent and loss of morals has made us unfocused, entitlement minded busybodies.

This isn't the first time I've read a sweeping generalization from yourself based on "personal experience". I have no doubt you have a lot of personal experiences and don't disagree with your viewpoint (in fact my personal experience dictates the same) however, it is still a generalization. You're talking about a cohort that you (and I for that matter) have no formal analysis to back up.

I'm American and I've immigrated to the UK. I know hundreds of Americans who have done the same. I don't know a single one of them who "has nothing to lose". So I could also conclude the exact opposite conjecture.

The reason I mention all of this is not because I think you or I are right or wrong, but because I think is disingenuous to provide arguments (from either side) without any formal analysis.

Anyway, let's get back on topic. So if it 33% of immigrants are co-founding big businesses in the US that are helping the US economy, then surely we should be letting in more right? X * Z% = Y, increase Z% and we get more Y, right? There's a couple things at work here:

- The fact that 33% are actually making it into the US and creating businesses perhaps speaks the nature of the people who "stop at nothing" to live their dreams. The US immigration system is painful, but perhaps it's this painful barrier that filters out all of the immigrants who don't create jobs for the US and does identify the people that do.

- What is the ideal % for founders? Is it 90%? Is it 50%? If it becomes 90% then why shouldn't it become 100%? Perhaps we could create an analogy to a silly american football argument and say "85% of all NFL Pro-bowl players are African-Americans. Let's get more African-Americans playing football!"

- I have yet to see a reasonable argument for a system that correctly attributes the probability of creating a successful business by an immigrant to the US. For one, it is not a specific country. The article clearly dictates this.

- I believe the massive proponents for immigration reform stems mainly from high-net worth individuals that are complaining because they want to bring highly talented people from abroad to the US so that they can personally benefit from it. Equally, potential immigrants are complaining because they don't have an opportunity to move to the US. If this is such a big problem, why not find a country that supports both? Surely there is an island in the Caribbean that could cater to this?

- I think you are right in that the mentality of the successful business creator is someone with "nothing to lose". This is how America became so prosperous and heck it was built by immigrants 200 odd years ago. But surely there are people in the US with "nothing to lose"? I think it would be beneficial to understand more about the character traits of these massively successful business founders, rather than simply the country they come from. Otherwise, we're using the same exact basis the the opposition is using - that this cohort's characteristic is simply that it was born in a country outside of the US.

- I've emigrated myself (to Canada, founded a company there)

- I know quite a few people who have done the same thing

- I'm generalizing across my personal experience because I am me. Feel free to do the same thing, this is a comment on a forum, not a peer-reviewed study on the subject matter. Funny enough, your experience seems to be the same, which strengthens my 'not being surprised' by this.

- People in the US with 'nothing to lose' don't typically decide to have nothing to lose. An immigrant is deciding to go onto a risky path in life fairly consciously which would explain the difference in outcome.

I, nor the person before you, weren't questioning your ability to empathize with the original story. I'm not sure why you chose to highlight facts that back that up.

Feel free to do the same thing

I don't want to. You have influence on this site and it's very likely someone will read your original comment and take your conclusion to be true because "someone influential said it on the internet". Your generalization is consistent with mine, but the conclusion is unfounded.

An immigrant is deciding to go onto a risky path in life fairly consciously which would explain the difference in outcome.

But immigration in of itself, does not constitute a risky path. Hence my example of Americans in the UK.