Some thoughts on foreign graduate student citizenship

[Vehl]

11. My thoughts, as an Immigrant

First of all, Thank you johnd83 for this thread and post. I've seen quite a lot of posts on this/related subjects on DU over the years and have usually stayed away from participating in them. The reason I do not participate is that I'm usually sickened by the anti Immigrant(only towards the tech workers/students) posts some members make on such threads. However even though I do know that most of DU'ers do not share the views of those vocal few, such posts leave me with a bad taste in my mouth and usually keeps me away from DU for a few days

I applaud the way that you have presented both sides of the argument, and I have to say that its not often one gets to see such a post. When I was watching the State of the Union address by the president I noticed his statement regarding students and tech/science immigrants (which you also did). Imho this is a welcome and long overdue one.

So we are left in a situation where we attract and pay to educate the best and brightest in the entire world, but when they are done we send them home to compete against us even though many of them would like to stay. This is a relatively simple problem to fix: if a foreign student earns an advanced degree in STEM or related field they get some form of permanent residence with a path to citizenship. I don't even see why this is controversial! There is a huge shortage of skilled engineers and scientists.

(ps: Just to clarify..now onwards this post is a general post and not a response to yours )

You have hit the nail on the head here. If i remember correctly, more than 70% of the PHD holders in the science/tech fields are immigrants. Almost all of them came here as students. It will not be incorrect to say that the current position of leadership America enjoys in the Science/Tech arena is due to these very immigrants...at least to a significant degree.

I understand the worries of those who believe such a policy will negatively impact American workers. However if one were to look at the history of American innovation and job creation, one would see the huge contributions made by immigrants, especially in the past few decades( One should also not disregard the influx of German and other immigrant(scientists, mathematicians..etc etc) to the US after WW2, which provided a huge boost to the American tech/science base).

The field of computing...especially the Silicon Valley has always had immigrant blood running through it veins..even from the onset.Immigrants, especially the tech/science immigrants have contributed so much to the American economy, both in the form of job creation and innovation.

Some of the Companies(from a long list) founded/Co-founded by Immigrants include

Google
Yahoo
Intel
Youtube
Sun microsystems
Hotmail ( Which gave us the concept of free email)
Ebay

The list goes on.

"these immigrant founded companies employed 450,000 workers. Add it up. That’s far more than all the tech workers we gave green cards to in that period."

18% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants and their children founded another 22%.
This represents 1.7 Trillion (in 2010)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2011/06/19/40-percent-of-fortune-500-companies-founded-by-immigrants-or-their-children/

Furthermore H1B workers/Students(Not included the large number of naturalized immigrants)
They also founded half of the top 50 new startups in America
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/21/immigrants-startups_n_1162590.html

Not to mention the fact that they are also responsible for 25% of the Global patents America was awarded

In 2006, more than 25% of U.S. global patents had authors who were born abroad — and this doesn’t even count people like me, who came here, became citizens, and then filed multiple patents. Of Qualcomm’s global patents, 72% had foreign-born authors, as did 65% of Merck’s, 64% of GE’s, and 60% of Cisco’s. I’m not talking about silly patents filed with the U.S. Patent Office here, I’m talking about WIPO PCT applications — the patents that help our companies compete globally.

The point I would like to get across to those who are considering the Immigration policy towards tech/science students/workers is that they are and have always been one of the most productive and innovative segments of the society. America has gained/gains a lot due to the efforts of these immigrants and to demonize them/blame them is a clear case of being penny wise and pound foolish.

I accept that others might disagree with my views, and I do not want to clutter this post with more statistics and facts.
We Immigrants have always believed that America is a land of opportunity that rewards those who work hard, and have always lived/tried to live up to its Ideals..it saddens me to see us getting the short end of the stick sometimes.

[IMG][/IMG]

“What America’s basically saying is, ‘We’ve educated you, we’ve trained you, we’ve taught you all about our markets,’” says Vivek Wadhwa, a successful Indian-born tech entrepreneur turned Duke University professor, and the leading U.S. expert on Indian immigration. “‘Now you have to get the hell out of here. Go out and become our competitors.’

“We couldn’t have a more stupid national policy than we do,” Wadhwa adds. “These people don’t want to be competing with America. They want to be competing for America.”

The Reverse Brain Drain is real. For Decades the best and the brightest from all over the world came to America. In fact it was a huge Boon for America and a Crushing loss for their nation of Origin...which educated them (often on the taxpayer's dime), only to see its best minds leave to the US. Now...the trend might be changing...and if America is not willing to realize the huge benefits these immigrants bring to it..it will lose one of its greatest advantages.


Here is an excellent article about the issues Immigrants face and the antiquated immigration policies of America which is making tens of thousands of highly educated Immigrants go back to their home countries.


Home is where the brain is
~By Benjamin Schrier, Photograph by Michael Rubenstein | | August 13, 2009 , San Francisco Magazine.
http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/home-where-brain

An excerpt from the article

He landed on the California coast in 2002, riding a shining wave of Indian immigration. It wasn’t the first of its kind. For decades, those swells traversed the Pacific and smashed to rolling white breakers south of San Francisco. India’s best and brightest swept inland, helped turn a valley full of orchards to Silicon. And Silicon turned to gold, as baby-faced kings with Coke-bottle glasses made millions overnight.

At 22, Gaurav left the noise and squalor of Mumbai far behind. He started out as a lonely grad student, dirt-poor, scared, and baffled that a few bananas could cost a whole dollar. With no car, he walked everywhere, miles at a time. But soon he found himself breathing the rarefied air of Google, high-tech’s Shangri-La. He put down roots and thrived, grew his dark hair long, bought a Prius.

They kept coming to the Bay, men and women just like him, drawn to the univer­sities’ regal gates, the salaries unimaginable in India, and the chance to work on technology’s cutting edge. By 2005, more than half of all the engineers in Silicon Valley were foreign-born, and a full quarter of those were Indian.

But times are changing. American jobs for American workers! cry the protectionists, as they always do when the going gets tough. Go back to where you came from! cry modern-day Know Nothings, as they always do when people are scared enough to listen. And for the first time in American history, the immigrants are going back, by the tens of thousands. Some go by choice, as India's pull grows stronger by the day. Some—casual­ties of contracting payrolls and unforgiving visas—have no choice. To Delhi, to Bangalore, to Chennai trickles the lifeblood of innovation.

When the human waves came crashing through, we reaped the benefits. In the fat years of harvest, we grew complacent. But waves that scramble up the beach, no matter how massive, always recede. We turned our backs on the ocean, and forgot about the undertow.