Innovative Immigrants

"Compared with the native-born, who have extended families and lifelong social and commercial relationships, immigrants without such ties — without businesses to inherit or family property to protect — are in some ways better prepared to play the innovator’s role.  A hundred academic monographs could not prove that immigrants are more innovative than native-born Americans, because each spurs the other on.  Innovations by the blended population were, and still are, integral to the economic growth of the United States.  But our overly complex immigration law hampers even the most obvious innovators’ efforts to become citizens.  It endangers our tradition of entrepreneurship, and it must be repaired — soon." - Thomas K. McCraw, professor emeritus at Harvard Business School and the author, most recently, of “The Founders and Finance: How Hamilton, Gallatin, and Other Immigrants Forged a New Economy.”