Immigration & the Business Community

December 10, 2010, 3:32 pm - New York Times

Bloomberg Talks Immigration With Business Titans

By SAM DOLNICK

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told his business-world peers on Friday that if they cared about their city and, more pointedly, their companies, they needed to support his call for comprehensive immigration reform. The economy is suffering because of Washington’s failure to change restrictive policies, he said, and talented entrepreneurs were taking their ideas to other countries that are only too happy to host them.

“If we keep the best and the brightest out of this country, all the next big things will happen outside this country,” the mayor said during a speech at the New York Stock Exchange.

Mr. Bloomberg called it the responsibility of the pinstriped titans gathered before him — Rupert Murdoch, Lloyd C. Blankfein, Kenneth I. Chenault of American Express — to bring common sense and economic experience to the immigration debate, which he called the most important issue facing the country.

“You look at people who say, ‘Oh, no, immigrants are going to kill us,’ and you wonder — they haven’t read history,” the mayor said. “They don’t understand anything about business. And it’s up to us educate them.” more