Skilled entrepreneurs leaving U.S. behind

More than 1,000,000 skilled immigrant workers--including Indian and Chinese scientists and engineers--and their families are competing for 120,000 permanent U.S. resident visas each year. The sizable imbalance is likely to fuel a "reverse brain-drain," with skilled workers returning to their home countries, according to a report from Duke University, Durham, N.C. The situation is made even bleaker as the number of employment visas issued to immigrants from any single country is less than 10,000 per year, with a wait time of several years.

"The United States benefits from having foreign-born innovators create their ideas in this country," notes Vivek Wadhwa, executive in residence at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering and Wertheim Fellow with Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Mass. "Their departures would be detrimental to U.S. economic well-being. When foreigners come to the United States, collaborate with Americans in developing and patenting new ideas, and employ those ideas in business in ways they could not readily do in their home countries, the world benefits."

"These findings are important, highlighting the invaluable contribution of foreign nationals to our country's technological and economic vitality," says Duke Provost Peter Lange, the university's top academic officer. "We know from our own experience here that students from China, India, and other nations can play an outstanding role in advancing knowledge and creating new jobs, especially in cutting-edge fields."

One in four engineering and technology start-up companies created between 1995-2005 had an immigrant founder. Researchers indicate that these companies employed 450,-000 workers and generated $52,000,-000,000 in revenue in 2006. Indian immigrants founded more companies than the next four groups (from the United Kingdom, China, Taiwan, and Japan) combined. Furthermore, these firms' founders tended to be highly educated in science, technology, math, and engineering-related disciplines, with 96% holding bachelor's degrees and 75% master's or Ph.D. degrees.

An analysis of the World Intellectual Property Organization database reveals the percentage of foreign nationals contributing to U.S. international patent applications increased from an estimated 7.3% in 1998 to 24.2% in 2006. The largest foreign-born group was from China (mainland and Taiwan). Indian nationals were second, followed by Canadian and British nationals.

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