Amended in Assembly September 3, 2013

Amended in Assembly August 29, 2013

Amended in Assembly August 5, 2013

Amended in Senate April 25, 2013

Senate Joint Resolution No. 9

Introduced by Senators Huff, Anderson, Berryhill, Cannella, Emmerson, Fuller, Gaines, Knight, Nielsen, Walters, and Wyland

(Coauthors: Assembly Members Achadjian, Allen, Bigelow, Chávez, Conway, Dahle, Beth Gaines, Hagman, Harkey, Linder, Maienschein, Mansoor, Melendez, Nestande, Olsen, Patterson, Wagner, begin delete and Wilk end delete begin insert Wilk, end insert begin insert Ammiano, Atkins, Bloom, Bocanegra, Bonilla, Bonta, Bradford, Brown, Buchanan, Ian end insert begin insert  Calderon, Campos, Chau, Chesbro, Cooley, Dickinson, Eggman, Fong, Fox, Frazier, Garcia, Gatto, Gomez, Gordon, Gorell, Gray, Grove, Roger end insert begin insert  Hernández, Holden, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Logue, Lowenthal, Medina, Morrell, Mullin, Muratsuchi, Pan, Perea, John end insert begin insert  A. end insert begin insert  Pérez, V. end insert begin insert  Manuel end insert begin insert  Pérez, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Rendon, Salas, Skinner, Stone, Ting, Waldron, Weber, Wieckowski, Williams, and Yamada end insert )

March 21, 2013

Senate Joint Resolution No. 9—Relative to the Startup Act 3.0.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

SJR 9, as amended, Huff. Startup Act 3.0.

This measure would urge the United States Congress and the President to establish new entrepreneur and science, technology, engineering, or mathematics-related visa categories for legal immigrants as part of comprehensive federal immigration reform, that would, among other things, create an Entrepreneur’s Visa for legal immigrants, provide authorization to adjust the status of not more than 50,000 aliens who have earned a master’s degree or a doctorate degree, as specified, to that of aliens conditionally admitted for permanent residence, and eliminate per-country caps for employment-based immigrant visas.

Fiscal committee: no.

WHEREAS, The United States is a nation of immigrants, with
a long history of welcoming indigents from other nations and
giving them a chance at achieving the American Dream; and

WHEREAS, Immigrants have formed the backbone of the
nation’s economy; and

WHEREAS, Open economies grow faster than closed ones, and
as a beacon of hope, America has historically had an unbeatable
advantage over societies that shut immigrants out, or stifled their
creative and innovative spirit; and

WHEREAS, The United States economy has been enriched by
the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of immigrants from around
the world; and

WHEREAS, According to the Kauffman Foundation on
Entrepreneurship, of the current Fortune 500 companies, including
Apple, Google, and eBay, more than 40 percent were founded by
first- or second-generation Americans, and these companies employ
more than 10 million people; and

WHEREAS, Foreign nationals residing in the United States
were named as inventors or coinventors in one-quarter of all patent
applications filed in 2006; and

WHEREAS, Fifty-two percent of Silicon Valley startups
between 1995 and 2005 were founded or cofounded by immigrants,
generating $52 billion in revenues and employing 450,000 workers;
and

WHEREAS, In the past seven years, the national rate of startups
by immigrants has dropped to 42 percent according to scholars at
Harvard and Duke Universities; and

WHEREAS, The number of foreign nationals with advanced
degrees awaiting permanent-resident status in the United States
has grown to over one million in the past several years; and

WHEREAS, Under current law, only around 120,000 visas are
available annually for skilled workers in key employment
categories and only 7 percent of these visas can be allocated to
immigrants from any one country. So immigrants from countries
with large populations, like India and China, which are the source
of the vast majority of startups in the United States, have access
to only 8,400 visas per year; and

WHEREAS, The result of this policy is that many of these highly
skilled immigrants must wait more than a decade for visas; and

WHEREAS, Many of these highly skilled innovators are
deciding instead to return home, or immigrate to other countries
that welcome them with open arms, such as Singapore, Canada,
Dubai, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Chile. As a result, these
innovators are founding companies in these other countries and
competing with American companies for market share; and

WHEREAS, The issue of illegal immigration has taken on
national prominence in recent years and the resolution of the
broader issue should be the result of bipartisan efforts; and

WHEREAS, United States Senators Jerry Moran (R-Kansas),
Mark Warner (D-Virginia), Chris Coons (D-Delaware), and Roy
Blunt (R-Missouri) have introduced S. 310, and United States
House Representatives Michael Grimm (R-New York), Loretta
Sanchez (D-California), and others have introduced H.R. 714 in
the 113th Congress of the United States, and this legislation is
known as the Startup Act 3.0; and

WHEREAS, Entrepreneurs and highly skilled workers can
contribute to the continued success of the nation and further the
development of an innovation-based economy that will help future
generations compete in the global marketplace; and

WHEREAS, There has been bipartisan support in Congress for
proposed changes to immigration law seeking to create new jobs
and drive economic growth, such as:

(1) Creation of an Entrepreneur’s Visa for up to 75,000 legal
immigrants who start up new businesses to create jobs in the United
States with a path to permanent residency if their businesses
continue to hire more workers.

(2) Authorization to adjust the status of not more than 50,000
aliens who have earned a master’s degree or a doctorate degree at
an American institution of higher education in a STEM field
(science, technology, engineering, or mathematics) to that of aliens
conditionally admitted for permanent residence to remain in this
country.

(3) Elimination of per-country caps for employment-based
immigrant visas; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and the Assembly of the State of
California, jointly, That the Legislature urge the United States
Congress and the President to establish new entrepreneur and
STEM-related visa categories for legal immigrants as part of
comprehensive federal immigration reform; and be it further

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of
this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United
States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the
Majority Leader of the Senate, and to each Senator and
Representative from California in the Congress of the United
States.