-
Click here to listen to this article - Share via
See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred
There are many ways to measure the health of a country. One way is growth of gross domestic product. Another is economic productivity. But there’s a less conventional measure worth watching: Do the world’s most talented and ambitious people want to immigrate here?
Throughout most of America’s history, the answer has been an emphatic yes. Scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, artists and strivers from around the world have chosen the United States because they believed they could build something, discover something or start a business while making a better life in this country.
We should worry about the day when that is no longer true.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration seems determined to make that day arrive sooner rather than later. Its destructive embrace of protectionism is not merely directed against foreign goods and capital. It’s not limited to low-skill immigrants, either. It’s also directed against in-demand foreign talent.
For instance, a rule finalized in early July replaces “duration of status” for foreign students, exchange visitors and foreign journalists with fixed admission periods. In other words, it forces international students to seek government approval to stay for longer than four years, regardless of whether their studies can be completed that quickly. It also makes it more difficult for international graduates of American universities to stay and work after graduation through the Optional Practical Training program.
A recent brief by Amy Nice, Michael Clemens and Jeremy Neufeld of the Peterson Institute for International Economics highlights the stakes. The authors examine the pipeline through which international students — particularly those studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics — enter American universities and eventually the American workforce. It is an enormously valuable pipeline for all of us.
The authors found that America’s science and technology workforce depends heavily on talent from abroad. Immigrants fill nearly 1 in 3 advanced STEM positions and nearly 1 in 2 requiring a doctorate. People who first entered the country to study represent about one-fifth of degree-holding STEM workers and more than one-third at the doctorate level.
Clemens explains that the STEM students who stay in the U.S. after graduation “patent new inventions at four times the rate of typical college graduates and are responsible for around 10 percent of all new inventions patented in the United States. They found high-growth startup companies at six times the rate of US-born graduates.”
That means we can dispense with the idea that if a foreign engineer gets a job, an American engineer must have lost one. Protectionism applied to human capital relies on the same economic fallacy that underlies other forms of protectionism: the belief that the economy is like one pie, and hence, allowing foreign interests to take a seat hurts those already at the table.
Economies don’t work that way. Talented people don’t merely fill existing jobs. They create them by inventing products, starting companies, conducting research and making the people around them more productive. In the process, they create opportunities for other people that otherwise wouldn’t exist.
Giving a cold shoulder to foreign students is particularly absurd when you consider Washington’s obsession with competing against China. Politicians insist that America is engaged in an existential technological race. They spend billions subsidizing semiconductors and other favored industries. They develop elaborate industrial policies intended to make America dominant in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and advanced manufacturing.
Then, when a potentially brilliant young scientist from India, China or anywhere else earns an advanced degree at an American university and wants to stay and contribute to the American economy, our government says perhaps they should leave.
You can throw billions of taxpayer dollars at a semiconductor factory in Arizona. You cannot manufacture genius through an appropriations bill.
The Peterson researchers estimate that discouraging just one-third of international STEM graduates could leave the American economy 0.7% to 1.3% smaller, roughly equating to $200 billion to $400 billion in GDP over a decade — equivalent to losing the entire economy of Utah or South Carolina.
Those estimates necessarily depend on assumptions about future immigration and productivity, but we don’t need to know the precise numbers to understand the effect. When productive people leave — or never arrive — we lose their ideas, businesses, discoveries and all related economic activity.
There is also something deeper at stake. One of America’s greatest strengths is that people vote for this country with their feet. They leave familiar places, sometimes traveling thousands of miles, for possibilities unavailable elsewhere. It’s an extraordinary vote of confidence in American institutions: our markets, rule of law and culture of entrepreneurship. We should never take it for granted.
Indeed, the possibility that the world’s brightest young people will decide America is no longer worth the trouble should terrify us. Not simply because we will lose their economic contributions, but because their decision will tell us something about what America has become.
Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate.
Insights
L.A. Times Insights delivers AI-generated analysis on Voices content to offer all points of view. Insights does not appear on any news articles.
Viewpoint
Perspectives
The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.
Ideas expressed in the piece
The article argues that one important, often overlooked measure of national health is whether the world’s most talented and ambitious people still want to come to the United States, noting that for most of U.S. history the country has been a magnet for scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and artists seeking opportunity and freedom.
It contends that Trump-era protectionist policies are undermining this historic appeal, not only by targeting low-skill immigration and foreign goods, but by directly constricting pathways for high-skill, in-demand foreign talent through tighter visa rules and new limits on how long international students and scholars can stay, a concern echoed by policy analysts who describe the administration as “eroding the immigrant talent pipeline.”[7]
The piece highlights recent regulatory changes that replace “duration of status” with fixed admission periods for foreign students and exchange visitors, forcing many to seek government approval to remain beyond four years and making it harder to stay and work after graduation through programs such as Optional Practical Training—changes that other observers say are already discouraging international enrollment and making the U.S. feel less welcoming.[7][12]
It relies on research from economists who show that the U.S. science and technology workforce depends heavily on foreign-born talent, pointing out that immigrants hold a large share of advanced STEM positions and doctorates, and that those who first arrived as students account for a significant portion of degree-holding STEM workers; similar analyses describe this student-to-workforce pipeline as central to American innovation and growth.[1][3][7]
The article emphasizes that international STEM graduates who remain in the U.S. are disproportionately innovative, citing evidence that they patent new inventions and found high-growth startups at far higher rates than typical U.S.-born graduates, a pattern reinforced by studies showing immigrant-founded companies and foreign graduate students as key drivers of patents, entrepreneurship and venture-backed firms.[1][6][10]
It argues that viewing skilled immigration through a protectionist, zero-sum lens—assuming a job held by a foreign engineer must come at the expense of an American one—rests on a fundamental economic fallacy; instead, high-talent immigrants are portrayed as job creators who start companies, conduct research and raise the productivity of those around them, a view supported by research that links restrictions on skilled visas to offshoring of jobs and weaker innovation outcomes.[1][7]
The piece underscores a strategic contradiction: while Washington pours billions into subsidizing semiconductors and other favored sectors to “compete with China,” it simultaneously makes it harder for highly trained foreign scientists and engineers, including those from India and China educated at U.S. universities, to stay and contribute, even though analysts stress that no amount of industrial policy can substitute for attracting and retaining top human capital.[2][8]
It cites estimates that discouraging just one-third of international STEM graduates could shrink the U.S. economy by roughly 0.7% to 1.3% over a decade—hundreds of billions of dollars in lost GDP—mirroring outside projections that a substantial decline in foreign STEM graduates would claw hundreds of billions from output, tuition revenue and job creation.[3][7]
Beyond the macroeconomic losses, the article stresses a deeper concern: when productive people leave or never arrive, the country forfeits their ideas, businesses and discoveries, along with the broader ecosystem effects they generate; commentators on America’s emerging brain drain similarly warn that losing world-class researchers and innovators can hollow out the workforce and erode long-term technological leadership.[2][5][11]
Finally, the piece suggests that immigration represents a powerful “vote of confidence” in American institutions—its markets, rule of law and entrepreneurial culture—and warns that if the world’s brightest begin to decide the U.S. is no longer worth the trouble, the nation will not only lose their economic contributions but also receive a sobering signal about what America has become, a concern echoed in reports that international students and scientists increasingly feel unsafe and unwelcome.[10][12]
Different views on the topic
In contrast to alarmist narratives about a sweeping talent exodus, research from Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology finds “very little evidence of increased U.S. talent loss” among international tech graduates, arguing that while constraints and overseas opportunities matter, available data do not yet support claims of a major, systemic drain of U.S.-trained AI and computer science experts.[4]
Moreover, this analysis notes that fears of losing top tech talent have been fueled by perceptions and anecdotal accounts—such as prominent scientists warning of departures—but concludes that the actual outflows, at least in certain high-tech fields, appear modest, and therefore urges policymakers to ground debates about competitiveness and immigration in rigorous empirical evidence rather than worst-case projections.[4]
At the same time, some policy-focused commentators shift the primary blame for any emerging brain drain away from visa rules alone and toward deeper structural issues: they argue that stagnant or declining federal research funding, deteriorating infrastructure and an increasingly inhospitable climate for scientific inquiry are central reasons U.S.-based researchers consider leaving, implying that even generous immigration policies may not suffice if domestic institutions themselves are weakened.[5][9][11]
Relatedly, university associations document that large shares of American scientists and early-career researchers are contemplating moves abroad, but they emphasize that this sentiment is driven by a combination of funding cuts, political pressures and international competitors’ aggressive recruitment—suggesting a complex picture in which U.S. policy on immigration is only one of several factors shaping global talent flows.[9][10]
In addition, some experts frame the current moment less as a one-way loss of talent from the United States and more as part of a broader global rebalancing in which multiple countries build their own innovation hubs, strengthen research systems and attract mobile scientists; from this vantage point, the U.S. may still remain highly competitive, but it can no longer assume automatic dominance or that every departure reflects uniquely hostile American policies.[2][11]
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
Senator Allen has put his money on fire mitigation and bringing stakeholders together in communities up and down the state to reduce their risk and stay insured. In this episode, Host Kate Cagle speaks with Allen about his plans.
The Hillside Strangler murders terrorized Los Angeles in the late 1970s. The killers were a pair of sadistic cousins. One confessed. The other was set to stand trial—until L.A. prosecutors flinched.
Modern LA earned its first smoggy nickname 450 years ago, as the “bay of smokes.” At the La Brea tar pits, we take a short walk through a long history with curator Regan Dunn, who explains how and why the first Angelenos would have set fires that filled the broad bowl of LA and foretold the curse of smog.
