2015 Old Blog

UPDATE: Following the Boston Marathon bombing, the Washington Post and others reported that the bombers were refugees. Other reports, however, have indicated that the Tsarnaev brothers were not refugees — they arrived in the United States as young children of an asylee. As a State Department official told Bloomberg, their father came to the United States on a tourist visa and applied for asylum.

After over two weeks of the U.S. government in partial shutdown, the United States is on the brink of extreme financial crisis if Congress cannot come to an agreement and fully reopen U.S. federal services by October 17. Just a day before the Treasury Department will run out of emergency funds, it looks like the Senate has come up with a plan that will be voted on this evening. House Speaker John Boehner says that he will not block this proposal from coming to a vote in the House of Representatives, which is a hopeful sign that the proposal will succeed and government services (including certain types of immigration services) will be restored to their normal functions before the week ends.

During an interview with Univision this week, President Obama took time to rekindle the topic of immigration reform, stating "Once [the fiscal crisis] is done, you know, the day after I'm going to be pushing to say, call a vote on immigration reform. I'm going to do so because I think it's really important for the country."

Obama has taken an increasing amount of heat from immigration reform activists for his hard line stance on deportations, which have doubled over the last ten years. During his administration, an average of 400,000 immigrants have been deported each year. In addition to deportations, another hot topic has been the widespread increase of holding immigrants in for-profit detention centers. Many of these issues could be addressed with a commonsense, comprehensive immigration reform bill.

The President has been promising to deliver on immigration reform since he used it as a major selling point during his 2012 reelection campaign. Putting immigration reform back at the top of his priority list would help strengthen his credibility and satisfy the voters who are still waiting for him to deliver.

Congress might not be ready to agree on Obamacare and many other types of government spending, but immigration reform is a topic that has real potential to succeed with bipartisan support. Just last week, 8 House members were arrested at an immigration reform march on the National Mall. Due to the shutdown, approval of Republican congressmen has fallen substantially in comparison to their Democrat colleagues, and immigration reform would be a sure bet in securing more Hispanic and Asian voters for the next Presidential election. Hopefully the silver lining of the shutdown will be Congress' new found motivation to pass real, bipartisan reform laws, with immigration reform as their first and easiest choice.

Director

Phil is a Venture Partner with USVP. He joined the venture capital firm in 1985 after a successful 28-year career as an executive in the retailing industry. Prior to USVP, he served as President and CEO of Macy’s California, leading both the store’s sales growth from $200 million to nearly $1.2 billion and its profit growth from $17 million to $108 million. He also worked for R.H. Macy, Inc. and served on the Board of Directors for Apple Computers from 1979 to 1987.

Director

Mr. Morasca has served as an advisor, active board member, and chairman of middle-market, privately held companies. He has actively served on eight boards, chairing four of them. Morasca is an Executive Partner with SOLIDexecutive, Inc., an operating partner with Sterling Partners, a global private equity firm; and a staff advisor for the Gerson Lehrman Group Consultancy.

Director

Mr. Udell is founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of AccuQuote. AccuQuote has firmly established a leading position in the term life insurance market. He founded Byron Udell & Associates in 1986 and, for the first eight years, focused mainly on helping wealthy individuals and families with their permanent and term life insurance and estate planning needs. Byron Udell holds a Bachelors Degree (BS) in Business Administration from the University of Illinois.

Manager of Customer Support

VISANOW promises to provide exceptional customer service and as Manager of Customer Support Jenny Terlinden is part of fulfilling that promise.

Before she joined VISANOW, Jenny earned a Bachelor of Science in English Lit and Spanish, with a Minor in Global Cultures and European Studies from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Director

Mr. Lim has over 25 years of hands-on successful experience in investing and managing high technology private and public companies. Mr. Lim has served as Chairman and CEO for startups, buyouts, and turnarounds after re-founding Ditech Communications (DITC) in 1994 and grew it to IPO in 1999. In year 2000, Mr. Lim has established Lim Capital Group to invest in venture capital, private equity and hedge funds.