In the contentious debate over immigration, foes often point to the 1986 bill signed into law by Ronald Reagan, because it included an amnesty provision.
The National Foundation for American Policy has taken the opposite tack. Instead of looking at the past for failures, it has searched for successes.
It has found both in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (which opened the door to Asian immigrants) and the Immigration Act of 1990 (which increased employment-based green cards). These laws, a new NFAP report suggests, have helped make America the “leading global destination” for scientific research.
Since 2000, it notes, immigrants have been awarded 24 of the 68 Nobel Prizes won by Americans in chemistry, medicine and physics.
This proportion, the report notes, is far higher than earlier in the century when we had far more restrictions. Indeed, many of our researchers have “come from countries that would have been barred from immigrating under US law prior to 1965, including China, India and South Korea.”
It’s not the only argument for fixing our broken system. But it is a timely reminder that a nation that wishes to lead in a global knowledge economy is a nation that needs to attract talent wherever it can find it.