Immigrants Are the Better Startup Founders

• According to a study, 44 of 87 U.S. startups with a value of over $1 billion were founded by immigrants.

• They come most frequently from India, followed by Canada, Great Britain, Israel and Germany.

There is a man in the United States of America with a blond helmet hairstyle who wants to “Make America Great Again.” Politically he has sometimes more, but more often less to show, but he knows how to polarize. And he has a favorite topic: Walls. And borders. And fences.

The sometimes more, sometimes less blanket attacks of the presidential candidate Donald Trump against immigrants make for a climate of hate. With that, Trump, himself married to an immigrant, harms the country. Studies show that migration has provided the United States with enormous progress. Fifty-one percent of all American startups valued at at least $1 billion were founded by immigrants – those same people he would like to lock out are significantly involved in the technological innovations in his country.

The National Foundation for American Politics, an independent research organization, examined 87 American billion-dollar startups; 44 of them were founded by immigrants. Together, they have a value of $168 billion and create on average 760 jobs per startup. They by all means have the ability to make America “greater.” No: They are already doing it.

Garrett Camp, co-founder of Uber, is Canadian; Peter Thiel of the software firm Palentir Technologies was born in Germany; and the SpaceX founder Elon Musk hails from South Africa.

In spite of this, Trump continues to marginalize – Latin Americans with the greatest relish, but also Muslims. In India, Islam is the second largest religious orientation after Hinduism. And most of the startup founders in the U.S. come from exactly this country: 14 of them are originally from India, eight each are of Canadian or British origin, seven from Israel and four from Germany.

In Germany, too, many initiators of startups are of foreign descent. The Institute for Employment Research has ascertained that the proportion of founders in the population is about equal with 5.3 percent each among immigrants and non-immigrants.

A parallel to the U.S. – and unfortunately not the only one. Because in Germany, too, there are many people who fail to recognize the extent to which immigrants enrich society.