Smart Immigrants Needed

I knew from my teaching days that immigrants were heavily represented among the sciences and engineering. At Michigan's Honors College, many of the large number of students of Indian and Korean descent were majoring in one of the hard sciences or aiming toward engineering school. And I knew that earlier studies revealed that a large percentage of graduate students in science and technology were from an array of countries, including China, Taiwan, India, Pakistan, Korea, and Egypt.

But I was surprised by just how many of the outstanding younger students in these fields are either immigrants themselves or the children of recent arrivals. Today's WSJ ($) editorializes on this phenomenon in advance of Monday's release of a new study, "The Multiplier Effect," by the National Foundation for American Policy. The report, whose principal author is Stuart Anderson, contains (via the Journal) the following data:

"Children of immigrants comprise 65% of the 2004 U.S. Math Olympiad's top scorers (13 of 20) and 46% of the U.S. Physics Team (11 of 24).

"At this year's Intel Science Talent Search, which recognizes the nation's top math and science students, 60% of the finalists and seven of the top 10 award winners were immigrants or their children. Last year, three of the top four awardees were foreign-born."

Regarding these remarkable percentages, the Journal says: "Traditionally, these rigorous competitions have served as a font for the next generation of scientists and mathematicians. More than 95% of Intel Science Talent Search winners pursue science as a career, and 70% go on to earn an advanced degree. But the high rate of success among foreigners is even more extraordinary when you consider the tiny segment of the population that generates it.

While the whiz kids and their parents hail from nations as far-flung as India, Romania, China, Vietnam, Israel, Turkey and Russia, many are here on a very limited number of H-1b visas that are reserved for immigrants with technical skills. These visas are given out to fewer than 100,000 foreigners each year, which is less than .04% of the 293 million individuals who live in the U.S."

It also notes that over half of the engineers with doctorates working in the U.S. and 45% of computer scientists with doctorates are foreign-born -- another eye-popping statistic.

Talent gravitates to America because our society rewards rather than punishes hard work and innovation. This is true in spite of a chic prejudice for equality of results rather than opportunity pushed by academics (mostly in the humanities), NGOs, media stars, and leftwing politicians. There's also a small but vocal group of nativists on the right, represented mostly in the pages of Chronicles and The American Conservative. Together, these folks would cut off our access to global science and engineering talent, the former by reducing incentives for success through punitive taxation and bureaucratic meddling, the latter by prohibiting immigrants with the wrong skin color or eye shape from reaching our shores.

The Journal quotes Stuart Anderson on what America would be like today had anti-immigrant policies been adopted 20 or so years ago: "[W]e would have wiped out two-thirds of the top future scientists and mathematicians in the United States because we would have barred their parents from ever entering America." Such policies produce no winners -- only a less vigorous, less talented America.