NYT: Why Silicon Valley Wouldn’t Work Without Immigrants

SAN FRANCISCO — The workers of Silicon Valley make unlikely revolutionaries. As a group, they are relatively wealthy, well educated and well connected.

While most here supported Hillary Clinton, tech workers are not the most obvious targets of President Trump’s policy ideas. Many who populate the world’s richest tech companies will be just fine if the Affordable Care Act is repealed. Most will not be personally inconvenienced by the proposed Mexican border wall.

Under Mr. Trump, tech workers could enjoy a windfall. They may get tax credits for child care costs, their companies may be allowed to repatriate foreign profits, and their coming income tax cuts might fund a luxury vacation or two.

This is all by way of saying: The protests that swept through Silicon Valley and Seattle in the last two weeks were not motivated by short-term financial gain. If you want to understand why tech employees went to the mat against Mr. Trump’s executive order barring immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries, you need to first understand the crucial role that America’s relatively open immigration policies play in the tech business.

And you need to understand why people in tech see something cataclysmic in Mr. Trump’s executive order, and in the other immigration crackdowns waiting in the wings: the end of America’s standing as a beacon for the world’s best inventors.

Read the full article, “Why Silicon Valley Wouldn’t Work Without Immigrants”
Related NAE report, Reason For Reform: Entrepreneurship