America COMPETES Act

In News 

• Recently, the United States House of Representatives unveiled the ambitious America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology, and Economic Strength Act of 2022( America COMPETES Act ).

About America COMPETES Act of 2022

• It proposes to open up new vistas for talented individuals from across the world with a new start-up visa.
• It provides $52 billion to encourage more semiconductor production in the US and $45 billion for grants and loans to improve supply chain resilience and manufacturing, among other programmes.
  • It also includes funding to address social and economic inequality, climate change, and immigration.
    • For instance, it provides an exemption for STEM PhDs from the green card cap and creates a new green card for entrepreneurs.

• It also authorises $600 million a year to construct manufacturing facilities to make the US less reliant on solar components made in Xinjiang, China.

Other Provisions 

• The Act amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to create a new classification of “W” non-immigrants for entrepreneurs with an ownership interest in a start-up entity, essential employees of a start-up entity, and their spouses and children.
• It will direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish procedures for foreign nationals with an ownership interest in a start-up entity to self-petition for lawful permanent resident status as an immigrant entrepreneur if the entity demonstrates a proven track record of success through job creation and significant revenue generation or receipt of investment capital.

• It also provides for a limited number of W-2 visas for personnel who are essential to the growth and success of the start-up entity if the start-up serves as the basis for the W-1 status of a founder.
• It exempts from the numerical limits on immigrant visas certain foreign nationals (and the spouses and children of such aliens) who have earned a doctoral degree in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) from a qualified US research institution or a foreign institution if the degree is the equivalent to a doctoral degree issued by a qualified US research institution.

Significance 

• It will make supply chains stronger and reinvigorate the innovation engine of the country’s economy to outcompete China and the rest of the world for decades to come.

Impacts on India 

• It would mean more opportunities in the US for Indian talent, and for skilled workers.
  • Every year, the US administration issues 85,000 H-1B work permits — of these, 65,000 are for people with speciality occupations, and the remaining 20,000 are reserved for foreign workers who have earned a masters or higher university degree in the US.
• With this new category, Indian professionals will likely have a better shot at opportunities that the Act is likely to provide.

Source: IE