Those innovating immigrants

Have you hugged a (legal) immigrant today? Go ahead. You should. A national survey conducted by Duke University in partnership with the University of California, Berkeley, has found that one in four engineering and technology companies started between 1995 and 2005 had at least one immigrant founder.

The companies had an estimated $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers in 2005. A more significant finding is that what used to be just a Silicon Valley phenomenon has gone national, although not all states are benefiting equally. New Jersey scores way above the national average - ranking second to California by a whisker - while Pennsylvania is a laggard. During the 1995-2005 period, immigrant entrepreneurs created nearly 38 percent of all tech start-ups in New Jersey, in fields such as software, biotechnology and engineering. Pennsylvania, on the other hand, can attribute fewer than 15 percent of its tech start-ups to ...