I can't get over how the U.S. government only allows relatively small numbers of foreigners to pursue advanced education and profitable careers here. And then to top it off we make it difficult for them to stay and settle down here. It seems to me we are undercutting ourselves by educating such gifted people and then having them leave to enrich their native country. This is not good for our economic "national security" and global competitiveness.<br>
<br>I knew several IT guys from India who were very frustrated by these policies and did not want to return home. But at least India is a friend and someone we need to build up our connections with. <br><br>At a major biotech research center I noticed many grad students and post docs from mainland China, and considering our economic and military rivalry with them, I really wonder about the wisdom of strengthening their research and development base by letting their best and brightest into the country for such work. <br>
<br>John <br><br><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20090303/bs_bw/feb2009tc20090228990934">http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20090303/bs_bw/feb2009tc20090228990934</a><br><br><cite class="vcard">By Vivek Wadhwa <span class="fn org">Vivek Wadhwa</span>
</cite>
–
<abbr title="2009-03-03T05:08:41-0800" class="timedate">Tue Mar 3, 8:08 am ET</abbr><br><p>
As the debate over H-1B workers and skilled immigrants intensifies, we
are losing sight of one important fact: The U.S. is no longer the only <span style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_0">land of opportunity</span>.
If we don't want the immigrants who have fueled our innovation and
economic growth, they now have options elsewhere. Immigrants are
returning home in greater numbers. And new research shows they are
returning to enjoy a better quality of life, better <span style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_1">career prospects</span>, and the comfort of being close to family and friends.</p>
<p>Earlier
research by my team suggested that a crisis was brewing because of a
burgeoning immigration backlog. At the end of 2006, more than 1 million
skilled professionals (engineers, scientists, doctors, researchers) and
their families were in line for a yearly allotment of only 120,000
permanent resident visas. The wait time for some people ran longer than
a decade. In the meantime, these workers were trapped in "immigration
limbo." If they changed jobs or even took a promotion, they risked
being pushed to the back of the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_2">permanent residency</span> queue. We predicted that skilled <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_3">foreign workers</span> would increasingly get fed up and return to countries like <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_4">India</span> and <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_5">China</span> where the economies were booming.</p>
<p>Why
should we care? Because immigrants are critical to the country's
long-term economic health. Despite the fact that they constitute only
12% of the U.S. population, immigrants have started 52% of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_6">Silicon Valley</span>'s
technology companies and contributed to more than 25% of our global
patents. They make up 24% of the U.S. science and engineering workforce
holding <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_7">bachelor's degrees</span> and 47% of science and engineering workers who have PhDs. Immigrants have co-founded firms such as <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_8">Google</span> (NasdaqGS:<a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/finance/bw/bs_bw/storytext/feb2009tc20090228990934/31164433/*http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=goog">GOOG</a> - <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/finance/bw/bs_bw/storytext/feb2009tc20090228990934/31164433/*http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=goog"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_9">News</span></a>), Intel (NasdaqGS:<a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/finance/bw/bs_bw/storytext/feb2009tc20090228990934/31164433/*http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=intc">INTC</a> - <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/finance/bw/bs_bw/storytext/feb2009tc20090228990934/31164433/*http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=intc">News</a>), <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_10">eBay</span> (NasdaqGS:<a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/finance/bw/bs_bw/storytext/feb2009tc20090228990934/31164433/*http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ebay">EBAY</a> - <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/finance/bw/bs_bw/storytext/feb2009tc20090228990934/31164433/*http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=ebay">News</a>), and <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_11">Yahoo</span>! (NasdaqGS:<a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/finance/bw/bs_bw/storytext/feb2009tc20090228990934/31164433/*http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=yhoo">YHOO</a> - <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/finance/bw/bs_bw/storytext/feb2009tc20090228990934/31164433/*http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=yhoo">News</a>).</p>
<p>Who Are They? Young and Well-Educated</p>
<p>We
tried to find hard data on how many immigrants had returned to India
and China. No government authority seems to track these numbers. But
human resources directors in India and China told us that what was a
trickle of returnees a decade ago had become a flood. Job applications
from the U.S. had increased tenfold over the last few years, they said.
To get an understanding of how the returnees had fared and why they
left the U.S., my team at Duke, along with <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_12">AnnaLee Saxenian</span> of the <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_13">University of California at Berkeley</span> and <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_14">Richard Freeman</span> of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_15">Harvard University</span>, conducted a survey. Through <span style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_16">professional networking</span> site <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_17">LinkedIn</span>,
we tracked down 1,203 Indian and Chinese immigrants who had worked or
received education in the U.S. and had returned to their home
countries. This research was funded by the <span style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_18">Kauffman Foundation</span>.</p>
<p>Our
new paper, "America's Loss Is the World's Gain," finds that the vast
majority of these returnees were relatively young. The average age was
30 for Indian returnees, and 33 for Chinese. They were highly educated,
with degrees in management, technology, or science. Fifty-one percent
of the Chinese held <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_19">master's degrees</span>
and 41% had PhDs. Sixty-six percent of the Indians held a master's and
12.1% had PhDs. They were at very top of the educational distribution
for these highly educated immigrant groups -- precisely the kind of
people who make the greatest contribution to the U.S. economy and to
business and job growth.</p>
<p>Nearly a third of the
Chinese returnees and a fifth of the Indians came to the U.S. on
student visas. A fifth of the Chinese and nearly half of the Indians
entered on <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_20">temporary work</span>
visas (such as the H-1B). The strongest factor that brought them to the
U.S. was professional and educational development opportunities.</p>
<p>What They Miss: Family and Friends</p>
<p>They
found life in the U.S. had many drawbacks. Returnees cited language
barriers, missing their family and friends at home, difficulty with <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_21">cultural assimilation</span>,
and care of parents and children as key issues. About a third of the
Indians and a fifth of the Chinese said that visas were a strong factor
in their decision to return home, but others left for opportunity and
to be close to family and friends. And it wasn't just new immigrants
who were returning. In fact, 30% of respondents held <span style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_22">permanent resident status</span> or were U.S. citizens.</p>
<p>Eighty-seven
percent of Chinese and 79% of Indians said a strong factor in their
original decision to return home was the growing demand for their
skills in their home countries. Their instincts generally proved right.
Significant numbers moved up the organization chart. Among Indians the
percentage of respondents holding senior management positions increased
from 10% in the U.S. to 44% in <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_23">India</span>, and among Chinese it increased from 9% in the U.S. to 36% in <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_24">China</span>.
Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 62% of Indians said they had better
opportunities for longer-term professional growth in their home
countries than in the U.S. Additionally, nearly half were considering
launching businesses and said entrepreneurial opportunities were better
in their home countries than in the U.S.</p>
<p>Friends
and family played an equally strong role for 88% of Indians and 77% of
Chinese. Care for aging parents was considered by 89% of Indians and
79% of Chinese to be much better in their home countries. Nearly 80% of
Indians and 67% of Chinese said family values were better in their home
countries.</p>
<p>More Options Back Home</p>
<p>Immigrants
who have arrived at America's shores have always felt lonely and
homesick. They had to make big personal sacrifices to provide their
children with better opportunities than they had. But they never have
had the option to return home. Now they do, and they are leaving.</p>
<p>It
isn't all rosy back home. Indians complained of traffic and congestion,
lack of infrastructure, excessive bureaucracy, and pollution. Chinese
complained of pollution, reverse culture shock, inferior education for
children, frustration with government bureaucracy, and the quality of
health care. Returnees said they were generally making less money in
absolute terms, but they also said they enjoyed a higher quality of
life.</p>
<p>We may not need all these workers in the
U.S. during the deepening recession. But we will need them to help us
recover from it. Right now, they are taking their skills and ideas back
to their home countries and are unlikely to return, barring an
extraordinary recruitment effort and major changes to <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1236093881_25">immigration policy</span>.
That hardly seems likely given the current political climate. The
policy focus now seems to be on doing whatever it takes to retain
existing American jobs -- even if it comes at the cost of building a
workforce for the future of America.</p>