Immigrant Daily

Study finds that xenophobia = brain drain

If we continue our current immigration policies, United States will become less competitive and will no longer be viewed as a haven for innovation, success and political freedom.  In our blind efforts to “protect” jobs we will drive out those who have the entrepreneurial capacity and will end up losing many more jobs than we have “protected.”  I firmly believe that in today’s world of intense global competition we should welcome incoming immigrants, whether they cross the border legally or illegally and view their arrival as a wonderful, strengthening addition of our country’s resources.  A new study by the Kauffman Foundation fully supports my views.

The Intellectual Property, the Immigration Backlog, and a Reverse Brain-Drain report finds that U.S. xenophobic immigration policies are fueling a “reverse brain drain.”  The study that was released yesterday asserts that the imbalance between skilled worker visa availability and the number of skilled workers is such that it is likely to drive highly trained foreign workers out of the United States.  Specifically the study states that “more than one million skilled immigrant workers, including scientists, engineers, doctors and researcher and their families are competing for 120,000 Permanent U.S. resident visas each year.”  Since many of these people represent the research backbone of U.S. corporations and institutions, their departure means that the U.S. risks its position as a leader in research and development.

The study was conducted by researchers at Duke, NYU and Harvard and is the third in a series that is trying to calculate the impact of immigrants’ contributions on the competitiveness of the U.S. economy. 

These reports have identified the following key findings:

• Foreign nationals residing in the United States were named as inventors or co-inventors in 25.6 percent of international patent applications filed from the United States in 2006. This represents an increase from 7.6 percent in 1998.
  
  
• Foreign nationals contributed to more than half of the international patents filed by a number of large, multi-national companies, including Qualcomm (72 percent), Merck & Co. (65 percent), General Electric (64 percent), Siemens (63 percent) and Cisco (60 percent). Forty-one percent of the patents filed by the U.S. government had foreign nationals as inventors or co-inventors.
  
  
• In 2006, 16.8 percent of international patent applications from the United States had an inventor or co-inventor with a Chinese-heritage name, representing an increase from 11.2 percent in 1998. The contribution of inventors with Indian-heritage names increased to 13.7 percent from 9.5 percent in the same period.
  
  
• The total number of employment-based principals in the employment-based categories and their family members waiting for legal permanent residence in the United States in 2006 was estimated at 1,055,084. Additionally, there are an estimated 126,421 residents abroad also waiting for employment-based U.S. legal permanent residence, adding up to a worldwide total of 1,181,505.

View all related Kauffman Foundation studies here.