Visa Backlog Risks Foreign Students' Business Dreams

aquamarinesea
Tue, 19 Feb 2013 10:38:46 +0000

[The Next Big Idea Stuck in Visa Limbo. Other countries court skilled immigrants frustrated by U.S. visa laws](http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/other-countries-court-skilled-immigrants-frustrated-by-us-visa-laws/2013/02/18/73d9f7ce-7137-11e2-ac36-3d8d9dcaa2e2_story.html)

Very interesting article. Two post-doc mechanical engineers at MIT, both from India, have developed a water-decontamination technology that could be used to dispose of billions of gallons of contaminated water produced by natural gas hydraulic fracturing (fracking). They have started a company to sell the system to oil businesses. Scientific American magazine said is is one of the top 10 “world-changing ideas” of 2012.

Both have student visas which will expire in a few months. Due to the restrictive US visa system, they will be forced to move their company to another country.

Leaders in academia and business feel that this could be a major threat to the US economy. Our immigration laws chase away highly skilled foreigners who are educated in US universities. For most, their education is being funded by US taxpayer dollars.

The article goes on to say that the US puts strict limits on visas for highly skilled workers where they may end up on a waiting list for years. In the meantime, other countries are actively recruiting them.

“We train these people and then we push them away, while Chile and the UK and Canada are coming in to recruit them,” said the managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. “These are people who are creating jobs. This is so outrageous to me.”

According to business leaders in the Silicon Valley, we are in desperate need of highly skilled workers in the STEM fields.

The Brookings Institute reports that about 50% of all STEM PhDs and 40% of all MIT grad students are foreign born. It costs about $250,00 to educate a single MIT PhD student and the government pays for 80% of it.

“Essentially we are funding their research; then we make it hard for these people to stay here. If you want more innovation in this country, fix the visa situation,” says the executive director of MIT’s Deshpande Center for Technical Innovation.