Immigration August 21, 2009, 11:50AM EST

U.S. Immigration Battle Heats Up

With Congress set to consider bills that deal with illegal immigrants and H-1B visa abuse, President Obama may find immigration reform a tough promise to keep

Story Tools

From Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-born 19th-century steel baron, to Roberto C. Goizueta, the Cuban exile who led Coca-Cola (KO) through most the 1980s and '90s, immigrants have been at the helm of many of America's top companies.

That's just as true today, even as politicians in Washington argue about whether to embark on immigration reform. Without immigrants, there would be no Google (GOOG), co-founded by Russian-born Sergey Brin. Two of the three people who launched YouTube were immigrants, too: Steven Chen, originally from Taiwan, and Jawed Karim, born in Germany. Immigrants also helped start Yahoo! (YHOO), eBay (EBAY), and Sun Microsystems (JAVA).

It's not just Silicon Valley that has depended on immigrants. They're also prominent in the world of finance, thanks to people like billionaire George Soros, former World Bank chief James Wolfensohn and Berkshire Hathaway's Ajit Jain (a possible successor to Warren Buffet.

Like Jain, many of the most successful immigrants in Corporate America today are from India. Indra Nooyi, who went to college in the southern Indian city of Chennai and earned an MBA in Kolkata, is the CEO of PepsiCo (PEP). Sanjay Jha, another Indian immigrant, is the co-CEO at Motorola (MOT). Vikram Pandit, born in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, is chairman and CEO of Citigroup (C). (For more on the world's most successful immigrants, see this BusinessWeek slide show.)

Despite the successful role immigrants have played in U.S. business, many Americans are worried about losing their jobs to immigrants or having their work outsourced to foreigners in the U.S. on short-term visas. That could make it more difficult for President Barack Obama to keep his promise to push for immigration reform. On Aug. 20, the President met with pro-immigrant activists in the White House and pledged not to let fights over health-care reform and energy legislation put the immigration issue on the back burner. Obama is hoping to do better than President George W. Bush, who failed in his effort last year to pass immigration reform.

Dueling Reform Bills in Congress

The battle could start heating up as soon as next month. Obama is likely to support the efforts of Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Senate's immigration subcommittee, who has said he will introduce new reform legislation this autumn that will crack down on illegal immigration. "We must create a system that converts the current flow of unskilled illegal immigrants into the United States into a more manageable and controlled flow of legal immigrants who can be absorbed by our economy," the senator said in a speech outlining his proposals in June.

However, he and Obama face some tough challenges. For instance, Illinois senator and fellow Democrat Richard Durbin is a co-sponsor of a bill to crack down on alleged abuse of H-1B visas, which allow companies to employ workers from overseas for limited stays.