U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Alejandro Mayorkas marked a significant milestone for the USCIS Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIR) initiative by launching an online resource center at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship in Cambridge, Mass. The resource center, Entrepreneur Pathways, provides entrepreneurs who seek to start a business in the United States an intuitive way to navigate the immigration process. It also provides information on future opportunities for engagement with the entrepreneurial community. For more information, please visit the USCIS blog, The Beacon.
Online Entrepreneur Resource Center, Entrepreneur Nonimmigrant Visa Guide Posted by Alejandro Mayorkas, Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
“Today, at an event focused on the nexus between immigration and entrepreneurship hosted by the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship in Cambridge, Mass., I was pleased to unveil Entrepreneur Pathways – an online resource center that provides entrepreneurs who seek to start a business in the United States an intuitive way to navigate the immigration process.
Entrepreneur Pathways is a signature accomplishment of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS’s) Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIR) initiative, which has focused on realizing our current immigration system’s full potential to attract and retain startup enterprises that promote innovation and spur job creation in America.
The EIR initiative began earlier this year focused on assessing current polices, practices and training across a range of existing nonimmigrant visa categories used by entrepreneurs. It has already made a lasting impact across USCIS. Through a comprehensive training course on startup enterprises and the landscape for early-stage innovations developed and delivered by the EIR team, our agency is better equipped with the tools to adjudicate petitions presented by entrepreneurs.
Recently, the EIR team embarked on a new challenge, expanding its focus to existing immigrant visa pathways that may enable foreign entrepreneurs to start a business and pursue a path to permanent residency in the United States. This new emphasis will bring training to an additional portion of USCIS’s workforce, and supplement the team’s continued work on the development of policies and practices relevant to the entrepreneurial community.
Given the success of the first phase of the EIR effort, which has led to unique improvements in our programs and enabled us to better serve foreign entrepreneurs, I look forward to seeing what the EIR team can accomplish in the months ahead.”
