Ivanka Trump hopes to help foreign entrepreneurs but may be undercut by father's policies
Ivanka Trump traveled to Hyderabad, India on Tuesday where she delivered remarks at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit advocating for young female entrepreneurs. What the president's daughter didn't mention during her speech is that her agenda in India is, in fact, complicated by her father's policies: Mr. Trump has delayed — and more recently moved to rescind — the implementation of the International Entrepreneur Rule.
This rule, signed into law by President Obama, allows foreign-born entrepreneurs to remain in the U.S. on a visa for up to five years to grow their start-ups.
Applicants for the visa were required to "provide a significant public benefit" for the U.S. and show investments of at least $250,000 from American investors, aimed at attracting and supporting the kind of entrepreneurs Ms. Trump told the crowd the world should do more to support.
"Yet, despite the soaring rate of female entrepreneurs, women still face steep obstacles to starting, owning, and growing their businesses," she said on Tuesday in Hyderabad.
"We must ensure women entrepreneurs have access to capital, access to networks and mentors, and access to equitable laws. In developing countries, 70 percent of women-owned small and medium-sized businesses are denied access to capital. The result has been a nearly $300 billion dollar annual credit deficit for women entrepreneurs in the developing world."
But the implementation of the International Entrepreneur Rule, which was to go into effect this past July, was postponed by the Department of Homeland Security to March 2018, and now, there's also the possibility it will be eliminated entirely.
In September, the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) filed a lawsuit against DHS that the delay was "unlawful" and "in violation of established administrative procedures," according to Jeff Farrah, NVCA's vice president of government affairs.
A 2013 study from NVCA pointed out that a third of venture-backed companies in the U.S. between 2006 and 2012 had at least one immigrant founder, including tech giants Facebook, LinkedIn, Zipcar and Tesla Motors."
"It's great that Ivanka Trump is promoting entrepreneurship in India, but the administration's action on the International Entrepreneur Rule is really harming entrepreneurship here in our country," Farrah wrote in an email to CBS News.
Mr. Trump also favors curbing the J-1 visa exchange program, including summer work travel programs which allow over 100,000 students to travel to the U.S. to work each summer.
Dr. Jennifer Clinton, the CEO of the Cultural Vistas, argues that eliminating these kinds of visas hurts female entrepreneurs seeking professional experience and training, business relationships, and critical new skills in the U.S. especially since "women often aren't afforded the same opportunities and mentors in their home countries."
"These programs, which do not cost the taxpayers a penny, break down harmful gender stereotypes for male and female participants," Clinton said.
Ms. Trump touted the U.S.' involvement in the World Bank founding of the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, which she estimates will raise $1 billion in public and private financing to provide "access to capital, networks, and mentorship for women in developing countries."
She also commended the U.S. Agency for International Development'S (USAID) work on female entrepreneurship "including providing micro-finance loans to women in Afghanistan, and bringing Internet access to women in Nigeria and Kenya."
But unmentioned by Ms. Trump was that her father's budget proposal called for slashing the USAID budget by one-third.
CBS News' Arden Farhi contributed to this report.
