USCIS is challenging an unusually large number of H-1B applications
Conservatives may generally view this as &quot;good&quot; regardless of the impact because (according to arguments I&#x27;ve heard) &quot;the less globalization, the better.&quot;<p>In my mind, however, it boils down to two pretty simple points:<p>Given that (1) the US is lagging far behind every developed nation in education, and higher education in the US is prohibitively expensive compared to other developed nations, (2) the only way for the US to remain on the R&amp;D playing field is to attract already educated&#x2F;trained people from other nations with the lure of misc benefits of living in the US (culture, safety, stability, philly cheese steaks). Take away our ability to import talent and there goes the last leg of American dominance in technology.<p>No more American students that can compete with Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, or German ones, leading to less innovation in a generation. No more immigrant students making their money and starting their businesses here (or working for American R&amp;D departments) because they can&#x27;t get a visa - and possibly even worse, well-trained highly educated Americans leaving because of the obvious end-game (reduced GDP causing all sorts of ripple effects in local economies, safety, etc).<p>I just don&#x27;t understand why we wouldn&#x27;t want to make it as easy as possible to steal talent that another country invested in. We take a 23yo Chinese engineering graduate as he&#x27;s going to begin peak productivity - the USA didn&#x27;t have to invest in his k-12, scholarship his university, clean the water he drank for 24 years, etc. Instantaneous social profit. He joins Chevron and is turning a profit for them within the year, pumping out research and getting taxed on his 100k&#x2F;year salary, spending his money in-country and oh well, maybe he sends a bit (already taxed) home.<p>Am I being reductive? Seems to be a very poor investment to make it harder for the highly educated to come into this country, without at the very least making a massive push for higher education across the board for our own citizens (which we are not seeing).<p>EDIT: To clarify my points: There are 2 ways for a country to be technologically advanced - train their own citizens, or steal other trained citizens. Have neither of those and obviously, you will fall behind.