For years, the U.S. has turned away smart, in-demand immigrants because of the limited number of H-1B visas it grants. Most regrettable is these highly trained and highly paid workers are also high in demand and often create more jobs than they fill. Instead, these workers attended U.S. universities only to return to their home countries to build companies, technology, and jobs.

Last year, Brad Feld started a movement to add a startup or founder’s visa to any immigrant who starts a company in the U.S. The Senate is now considering just such a bill called the Startup Visa Act (full text PDF here) that will encourage immigrants to stay and build companies here in the U.S. creating new jobs and new opportunities.

Certainly not every startup will succeed (no guarantees for U.S. citizen startups either), but as any venture capitalist knows, you only need one or two to take off to shake up an entire industry: see Google or Apple, Microsoft, and IBM of yesteryear. Our goal should be to make sure the next generation of Googles and Apples are founded in the U.S. as that ensures more jobs and more prosperity for the next generation.