Hollywood Reporter: CNN’s Fareed Zakaria examines the immigration debate through the prism of what analysts and polls say will be the deciding factor in the 2012 presidential election: the economy. The primetime hour – Global Lessons: The GPS Road Map for Making Immigration Work bows Sunday at 8 p.m. and features an interview with New York City Mayor and billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg, who has made immigration reform a signature issue.
Bloomberg asserts, and Zakaria – who is Indian-American – echoes that immigrants have traditionally been job creators via new business initiatives. Zakaria points out that more than 200 of the country’s Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants or children of immigrants including Google (Sergey Brin; Russian-American), Yahoo! (Jerry Yang: Chinese-American) and Intel (Andy Grove, who escaped Communist-controlled Hungary at the age of 20).
Making Immigration Work offers a case in point. Kunal Bahl earned am Ivy League degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, but he had difficulty obtaining and H-1B visa. So he went back to India where he started the e-commerce company Snapdeal.com, called the Amazon of India. Snapdeal.com is expected to take in $100 million in revenue this year and employees 1500 people – in India.
It is Zakaria’s second primetime special for CNN following an hour on health care last March. The host – who also writes a column for Time – recently won a Peabody Award for his commentary on the Arab Spring and a 2011 special on education. Meanwhile, CNN last week announced that beginning early next year it will add chef, author and media personality Anthony Bourdain to its weekend primetime lineup.
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