Who Will Safeguard American Immigrant & Entrepreneurial Roots?

With just hours left until the 2020 US Presidential elections, a lot has been said and written about the myriad policy positions, experience, personality traits, and the character of the two leading contenders. The stakes are so high, even minority communities, such as the Indian American community which constitutes just about 1% of total US voters, have for the first time seen a barrage of micro-targeted campaign communication, events, festival greetings and opinion pieces from both the campaign. In this essay, I look at the candidates from the lens of their position on some of the common reasons most Americans (or their ancestors) immigrated to this country in the first place. I argue that underlying all the noise and fury of elections, among the more fundamental questions on the ballot is: who will be the better steward of the immigrant roots and entrepreneurial traditions that have contributed to making America an exceptional nation?

Immigration to America

Immigration to America that started with the arrival of the 102 pilgrims aboard the Mayflower in 1620 and has continued virtually unabated since, is a unique advantage that helped America get a head start over most other nations. Over the past 400 years, a progressive immigration policy brought to American shores increasing numbers of dreamers, doers, and risk takers from all over the world. The vast majority of the immigrants came with special skills as farmworkers, railroad workers, engineers, doctors, nurses, scientists, and technology professionals- all eager to better their lives and prove their allegiance to their new homeland. According to the American Immigration Council, in 2018, 44.7 million immigrants (foreign-born individuals) comprised 14 percent of the national population, and 17 percent of the U.S. labor force. The estimated 3.6 million immigrant business owners accounted for 21 percent of all self-employed U.S. residents and generated $84.3 billion in business income. How do the candidates view immigration? in the US Senate and as vice president, Biden voted in favor of comprehensive immigration reform bill (1986, 2007, 2013). In a recent Op-Ed to the Indian American community (India West, October 22, 2020), Biden movingly writes about how their immigrant values reflect his own. On the policy front, Biden has pledged a reversal of the Trump administration’s family separation policy, travel and refugee bans, and severe restrictions on asylum calling these policies “un-American”. The Biden 2020 platform supports immigration reform that will attract the best and brightest workers from all over the world, while keeping families together and reducing backlogs on employment-based visas by country.

Entrepreneurship, Economy, and the American Dream

Immigrants by definition comprise a self-selected group of people who are action oriented, willing to break away from the past, and try something new. In the early day of immigration to America, as there were relatively few established industries to find employment, newly arriving people often had to seek new opportunities, learn new skills, and developed a unique culture that emphasized hard work, creativity, risk taking, grit, and resilience. This ‘frontier mindset’ helped early settlers establish thriving colonies and expand westward, claim new land, build railroads, establish hundreds of towns and small businesses. In the past few decades, American innovation and entrepreneurship have been powered by the information technology revolution, spearheaded by skilled immigrants from countries like India, China, and South Korea under the H1B visa program. Immigrant founders and executives have been involved with high-growth ventures such as Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Intel, Google, Kind, Snap, and Zoom, among thousands of others, that have become global icons, creating millions of new jobs and wealth. Immigrants has played a major role in making entrepreneurship a key pillar of American economic power, helping build robust pathways for upward social mobility and for millions of Americans live the American dream. How do the candidates stack up on entrepreneurship and the economy?

Pre-Covid, Trump had higher approval numbers than Biden for handling the economy as the nation continued to enjoy the economic expansion that started under the Obama-Biden administration and the stock market was shored up by the 2017 tax cuts. However, since April 2020, the mismanagement of the Covid-19 outbreak and the lack of a coherent national strategy to fight it has had devastating impact on the economy, with the national unemployment rate around 8%, about 11 million jobs lost, and more than 400,000 small businesses closed down. Federal assistance from the CARES act was poorly managed, slow, and the rules confusing, slow. Importantly, the CARES act completely ignored the leading creator of net new jobs in the US, high growth startups, especially those founded by minority owners and have been the most severely impacted by the pandemic

Joe Biden has the unique hands-on experience of digging the country out of a deep recession. His economic recovery plan is robust, targeted, compassionate and meets the challenges we face. Biden’s 2020 economic plan starts with a detailed strategy to get the virus under control by trusting science and scientists, a robust testing strategy, a smart contact tracing plan, and by strengthening our public health infrastructure. According to Moody’s, the Biden economic plan will create 7 million more jobs than Donald Trump over the next four years and help increase the average American’s after-tax income by $4,800 per year. The Biden plan called ‘Build Back Better’ calls for grants (not loans) and technical assistance for small businesses with less than 50 employees that have lost substantial revenue. The plan proposes new investment of $50 Billion in public/private venture capital to entrepreneurs in disadvantaged areas by funding state, local, tribal and non-profit initiatives and establishes a $500 Billion federal procurement program to “Buy American” designed to give greater federal contracting opportunities for certified small businesses.

In 2016 Trump victory was largely because he was seen by many as a successful businessman and deal maker. What was not too well know is that the Trump had an unfair advantage that almost no entrepreneurs get- a $400 million gift from his father- which as I teach my young students, disqualifies him from meeting the most basic definition of the term ‘entrepreneur’, much less a successful one. Another fact, largely ignored even today, that Trump had six business bankruptcies and many more failed businesses, due to mismanagement, inability to pay debtors, or just lack of personal integrity. In stark contrast, Joe Biden by virtue of his deep understanding of the historical context, traditions, and economic impact of immigration and entrepreneurship, and his famous empathy for people dealing with personal challenges, is clearly the better candidate for safeguarding the immigrant and entrepreneurial roots of America. Democrats, and recent polls indicate that increasing numbers of independents and even some Republicans believe that Joe Biden is the better custodian of all the values that make American an exceptional nation.

In just a few days (or weeks), we will know if Americans will vote their values.

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About Author: Suresh Kumar is a serial entrepreneur and professor of entrepreneurship based in NJ. He does research on entrepreneurship led economic growth and is a frequent Op-Ed contributor on leadership and politics. He is the founder of Indian Americans for Biden-Harris, a 10,000 member grassroots political group.