This article discusses the information uncovered by the Ewing Marion
Kauffman Foundation concerning the effects of tougher U.S.
immigration requirements. It brings attention to the fact that 120, 000 foreign citizens apply for a permanent resident visa per year. This figure equals less that 10, work visas from any single country.
The majority of those
applications come from professors, scientists, medical personnel and inventors. The Kauffman Foundation concludes if these people are forced to go back to their native countries, the United States will suffer from a “reverse brain-drain.”
Here are a few more of the statistics given in the article:
§ 31% of start-up companies in technical centers had immigrant key founders; 52.4% in California’s Silicon Valley alone.
§ People from India have started more businesses than the next top four countries combined: Great Britain, China, Taiwan and Japan.
§ Foreign visitors were responsible for 25% of the 2006 international patent applications from the United States.
§ In 2006, 1, 055, 084 stateside foreign visitors applied for permanent residence with 126, 421 applying from abroad for a total of 1, 181, 505 applicants.
This article provides some interesting facts, but I don''t think the author presented enough facts to determine a "reverse brain-drain." I would like to have seen the statistics showing a decline in American citizens applying for medical school as well as the decline in biology, chemistry, and phyics majors not applying for graduate school. Another statisitic I would have like to seen is the number of unemployed American citizens that have the potential to be doctors, professors, and inventors, but did not have the funds to go college to pursue their dreams. The article didn''t mention the reasoning behind tougher U.S. immigration laws.