From Wired -
TRUMP’S POLICIES ARE SENDING PRECIOUS STARTUP JOBS TO CANADA
By Issie Lapowsky
RAYA BIDSHAHRI’S HANDS shook as she sat in her dorm room in February, reading the email that had been sent to all Boston University students.
“It was a warning letter,” she says, about a ban the Trump administration planned to institute against travelers and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries, including Iran, where Bidshahri was born and where her family still lives.
Bidshahri had moved to the United States three years earlier to study neuroscience, and was just months away from graduation, after which she wanted to launch her online education startup in the Bay Area. She planned to take advantage of something called the International Entrepreneur Rule, which would give immigrant founders who raise at least $250,000 in funding temporary legal status in the United States while they build their businesses. For Bidshahri, the rule was perfectly timed. Finalized in the last days of President Obama's tenure in office, it was set to go into effect this July, just months after she received her diploma.
But that email from Boston University about the travel ban got Bidshahri thinking the United States might not be such a welcoming place for her or her company after all. And so, in June, she did what so many other foreign founders have done over the past year: set up shop in Toronto. Now she’s relieved she did.
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security delayed the International Entrepreneur Rule to next March, and it is currently accepting comments on plans to rescind it altogether.
https://www.wired.com/story/pausing-international-entrepreneur-rule-sends-jobs-to-canada?mbid=nl_71917_p1&CNDID=
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