Does not Play Well with Others

The United States certainly has a broad range of benefits for the foreigner looking for an exciting holiday or perhaps an educational trip. If you are looking for fantastic mountain vistas or perhaps care to try one of the prestigious Spanish course New York offers, you won't be disappointed. If, however, you are looking for something more permanent than a mere vacation Canada is going to be much more friendly towards foreigners with a desire for settling in.

The rabid arguments about the immigration issues in the United States have only recently receded to an uncomfortable place in the back of the national car because of other pressing issues on the nation's pulse. Things like the presidential election and the recent financial crisis are the sticking sores of the day. The voices of those who adamantly oppose to any form of foreign entry, however, can still be heard in the background and, according to an investigation by the International Herald Tribune, could lead to disaster for the nation's economy if they are put into action.

In the past month the global edition of the renowned New York Times released the results of a study that spoke about how the percentage of patents files by foreigners currently living in the United States has actually tripled in the past decade. The problem is that with the current tight cap on permanent visas and residence permits, the country might be forcing potential entrepreneurs away to create rival companies in more suitable locations like China or India.

Researchers from Harvard have recently published and analysis of the current trends regarding this issue, here presented in a way that will not require seven years enrolled in the best English course New York has to offer to decipher. Basically, these researchers describe the current trend as a Reverse Brain Drain. According to their forecast, if changes are not made to the the current immigration policy, immigrants would leave the country and heavily damage the U.S. competitiveness in key areas like technology development.

Wadhwa is an Indian born engineering and business lecturer at Duke and Harvard. He and his co-workers have created a database of inventors who filed patent applications with the World Intellectual Property Organization since 1998. The foreign nationals accounted for 7.3 percent of patents filed with the agency from the United States in 1998. By 2006, their share had more than tripled to 24.2 percent and this number is getting bigger still.

Foreign nationals at the technology pioneer Qualcomm and the pharmaceutical leader Merck accounted for at least 65 percent of applications from those two companies. Of applications filed by agencies of the U.S. government, foreign nationals filed 41 percent.

Whether this figures are persuasive or not, the bottom line is that the United States is not allowing more inventors to stay for any longer than a trip to the Florida beaches or, if they're lucky, one full driving holiday. One type of permanent visa for skilled workers, known as the EB visa, is capped at about 120,000 a year. The limit from any single country is about 8,400.

Stating that all of these inventors have gone on to make successful businesses in other economies is an absurd statement, and furthermore, one that it is not possible to prove. However, with the economies of India and China on the rise, these entrepreneurs have amazing opportunities unheard of five years ago, and their native countries may have lower housing costs and be closer to relatives.