Workers in Silicon Valley Weigh In on Obama’s Immigration Order

Silicon Valley’s constant stream of new apps and services depends on hundreds of thousands of foreign-born engineers to help create them. So the technology industry has been pushing for changes to the nation’s immigration policy for more than a decade to allow more skilled workers into the country. President Obama’s executive order on immigration falls well short of what both immigrants and industry leaders were seeking. The most vexing issues they face, like speeding up the process for obtaining permanent residency and getting more visas for high-skilled technology work, would require an act of Congress. Nonetheless, some immigrants working in technology were heartened by the President’s actions and said they could potentially make life and work in the United States easier. One of President Obama’s initiatives, for example, would give entrepreneurs starting a company a special founder’s visa, provided that they raise outside funding.