Turning Away Skilled Immigrants Will Hurt the U.S. Economy

From Danos, Slaughter and Hansen Say Turning Away Skilled Immigrants With H1-B Visas Will Hurt the U.S. Economy – WSJ.com.:

And where will all these foreign-born students go? To countries whose leaders recognize their job-creation potential and shape policy accordingly. For example, current British immigration policy welcomes an unlimited supply of the world’s best and brightest business minds. Since 2004, the U.K. Highly Skilled Migrant Programme has maintained a list of 50 of the world’s top business schools. Anyone who earns an MBA from a business school on this list is automatically eligible to work in the U.K. for at least one year.

Quite apart from their contributions to higher education, skilled immigrants have long contributed to American jobs and standards of living. They bring ideas for new technologies and new companies. And they bring connections to business opportunities abroad, stimulating exports and affiliate sales for multinational companies.

Turning away skilled immigrants will hurt, not help, the U.S. It is unlikely that supporters of the Employ American Workers Act saw the link from jobs at companies receiving TARP money to enrollments at American universities and graduate schools. But we ignore at our peril the indirect yet significant harm done by laws that try to wall America off from the global economy

Click on over to read the whole thing. Very good & I completely agree. If the best and brightest want to live in the US to do research, create companys (aka Google), or simply work here then they should and we should encourage it. We’re doing ourselves a great disservices to turn these minds away.