The United States requires immigrants, and if immigration restrictions are not changed quickly, the country risks falling behind. It’s happening in the field of scientific research, and it is only one of the many ways that overly restrictive immigration policies cost everyone. People cannot afford to wait for legislation to be passed in order to attract more immigrants, including more experts, to this country. The country cannot afford to lose its current immigrants, even those who arrived as youngsters.
The United States cannot afford to lose immigrants who work as farmworkers and in other critical occupations. It would be in everyone’s best interests for Congress to provide them with a road to legal status. The failure of this problem has an influence on national scientific status, and it can be observed here in the state at places like Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, where it is required to be able to recruit genuinely revolutionary scientists from across the world.
The failure of this problem has an influence on national scientific status, and it can be observed here in the state at places like Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, where it is required to be able to recruit genuinely revolutionary scientists from across the world. During the 1990s, the United States was the undisputed world science leader, thanks to two occurrences. First, science was critical in assisting the allies in winning World War II. That recognition launched the country on a path where scientific spending was regarded as crucial.
Second, 25 years later, the first successful attempt to land on the moon was made. This solidified the country’s position as a visionary leader in science and technology. None of those victories would have been possible without the contributions of immigrant scientists who were born overseas but opted to bring their brains, ability, and experience to America.
Today, the United States relies on foreign-born scientists. Bigelow Laboratory, for example, relies on professionals in computer science, physical science, and life sciences for its research. Scientists born outside the United States receive up to 54 per cent of doctorates awarded in these subjects in the United States.
Since 2000, immigrants have received almost 40% of the Nobel Prizes granted to American scientists. As this is where they wanted to be, the United States has prospered greatly from having their pick of the brightest minds and talent from around the world. A few will claim that these science jobs should be filled by Americans, but there is a major flaw in that logic. Even though the country could create enough skilled, native-born Americans to fill science jobs, they would lack the range of experiences and reference points that persons from outside the nation’s culture contribute.
To solve problems as complicated as global ocean challenges, scientists from outside the United States must be consulted. This is diversity as a strategic requirement, not a moral concern. Consider China as a recent illustration of the value of bringing in foreign scientists. They were a small player in science and technology twenty years ago.
China now publishes more peer-reviewed research articles than any other country in the world, a title formerly held by the United States. Part of the rationale for China’s remarkable growth is that the country has aggressively recruited prominent international scientists. Many students in other nations no longer aspire to attend college in the United States.
Extreme weather conditions, foreign competitiveness, cyber warfare, national defence – restricting immigration will have an influence on the country’s ability to compete and adapt to all of the enormous issues that will befall it in the next decades.
To maintain its global competitiveness, the United States must immediately reopen its doors to the world’s students, scientists, and engineers. Congress cannot afford to wait any longer. It must provide a road to work permits and permanent residency for current immigrants as a necessary first step toward modernizing the US immigration process to improve serve science and the nation at large.
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