Immigrant brain drain in Silicon Valley

I'm sure you're right. The funny thing is, we keep gloating over how many people own homes under a Republican administration, yet as Thomas Sowell points out, home ownership actually creates longer unemployment because people don't want to leave their homes for a new area.

"But to say that the brightest and best in science and high-tech are immigrants, that without them, the U.S. couldn't compete -- I believe that is wrong."

That's not what I said. Sorry if that's what you interpreted. Obviously, there are many talented, educated Americans. The question is what kind of person should be encouraged to emigrate to the US? Do we really want or need more bus boys, landscapers or construction workers? LEGAL immigration should be the top priority and it should be done with certain constraints. One of my points here is that by bringing in talented, educated immigrants it keeps everyone at the top of their game.

No. You are wrong. The best and brightest in US graduate schools are a combination of US and foreign students. Neither one is the best. The question is without attracting and retain the finest talent in these schools, a significant part of which comprises foreign students, the US will not be a competitive as it would be by retaining these folks. We are not talking about some illeducated person looking to find work on a farm. We are talking about companies like Intel who want to hire smart people from these schools. Its in Intels and America's interest to retain these folks.

Remember .. even if significant portion of these people were to be allowed to stay back.. thats a very small number compared to the population of the USA or indeed the population of the illegals. Right now the amount of people that enter from mexico illegally in a year is 10 times the amount of smart people that Intel etc are lobbying for.
So that gives a sense of perspective.
Also rest assured they will be paying into social security , not drawing from it.

Abuse of the system doesnt cut the rationale for the systems existance in the first place. Capitalism is abused by a few greedy people so we prosecute them for their crimes but we dont stop being capitalists.

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