We’ve received what seems to be a daily dose of misery in the form of misinformation about immigrants and immigration for well over a year now. As intended, those messages appear to have left their mark. International student enrollment is down, while at the same time hate crimes, hate speech and fear is up. Is there a connection?
I’m not here to address the relentless negative rhetoric on immigration or why it exists. Rather, I offer you facts, because facts don’t lie. Here’s one: immigrants are good for America.
Why would we think otherwise? Our nation was built by immigrants, and if America wants to continue to be a world leader, particularly in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), we need to acknowledge the positive impact and contributions made by immigrants and continue to do what we can to attract them to our country and welcome them into our communities.
Indeed, fully 40% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants and children of immigrants. These companies, which employ millions of Americans, include Kraft 22,000 employees), pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (97,900 employees), Google (53,000 employees), Tesla (18,000 employees), and Bell Telephone and AT&T (330,000 employees). There are many other examples, including Intel, Chobani, eBay, Yahoo, YouTube, Uber, Instagram, Dropbox, Proctor & Gamble, and DuPont, which collectively employ millions of Americans. These examples are just a drop in the bucket. Notably, it’s not just these “big name” companies that immigrants have founded. Immigrants are also scientists, researchers, engineers, and individuals in many other professions, all of whom are contributing positively to America right now, at this very moment.
Many of the immigrants who have made incredible contributions to the U.S. first arrived here as international students on F-1 visas to pursue an education in a STEM field. Maybe the topics of science, technology, engineering and math don’t personally interest you, or you don’t think these subjects impact you, but I’ll bet you’d agree that safe pharmaceuticals, research to wipe out diseases, and secure roads and highways all interest you, as do the latest electronics, gadgets, Google, Yahoo, and a million other tech items and ideas. So, the fact is, immigrants have made and continue to make incredible contributions, which the U.S. simply cannot miss out on if it desires to continue to be a world leader.
Here’s another fact or two: In the 2015–2016 academic year, international students studying in the U.S. contributed $32.8 billion dollars to our economy and supported 400,000 jobs. This hefty amount is attributed to the cost of tuition, books, fees, health insurance (F-1 students must provide their own health insurance), housing, utilities, food, transportation, entertainment, travel to and from their home countries, sales and property taxes, and a host of other expenses, purchases and payments. Thus, not only are international students not a drain on our economy and resources, they actually contribute billions of dollars to our economy—just by virtue of attending a university or college in the U.S.
Sadly, the number of innovators, would-be entrepreneurs, and rocket scientists who have been coming to the U.S. as international students is dropping. Much of the decline can be attributed to two very unfortunate reasons: many of these students do not feel welcome or safe in the U.S.
Attending a college or university in the U.S. is a tremendous financial investment for an international student and their parents, that’s a given. But there’s another sacrifice made by foreign students when they opt to study in the U.S.: these students leave behind their families and friends, often for years at a time. Paying for an international flight halfway across the world, even once a year, would be financially unfeasible for most students. As such, some only visit their home countries once during their tenure here as students. These students leave their homes knowing they won’t spend major holidays with their families, celebrate birthdays, or toast weddings together for years. Similarly, parents send their children halfway around the world, trusting another country to welcome them, educate them, and protect them. So, in addition to the financial investment that international students make in order to study in the U.S., the emotional investment must be taken into account. You can bet that the parents of these students, the best and the brightest from their home countries, are taking note of the uptick in crimes and attacks on immigrants and the hateful rhetoric in the news and on the internet, and are feeling that their children won’t be safe or welcome here.
Why should we care? We should care because education is a commodity and there’s a global market out there. Many nations around the world are competing with the U.S. to attract the cream of the crop in terms of students, innovators, and job creators. Whether we are driving these innovators and job creators away by making them feel unwelcome, or driving them away by making them feel unsafe, this needs to stop. Our shared prosperity is increased if we welcome international students. So let’s make America great for international students again by helping foreign students feel welcome and safe in our communities and across the United States.
America does benefit tremendously from foreign students and their post-graduate contributions, and we should welcome them. But I believe there is a deeper issue here than the comfort level of international students. The United States cannot continue to rely on importing foreign high-skill labor with no concurrent effort to improve our own K-12 education system. “Maybe the topics of science, technology, engineering and math don’t personally interest you…” That is a serious problem that cannot go unsolved. We need STEM skills to compete in the global marketplace and we need to encourage our American children to develop those skills – but there will still be plenty of room for foreign students. Other countries have imported large numbers of high-skilled foreign labor or investors and it always ends up with resentment among the native population (Germany, Uganda, Malaysia, etc.). There is no reason why America cannot both attract the best and brightest and cultivate the best and brightest at the same time. That would be a balanced stance.
Sadly, Trump’s contentious issue is yet one more thing that makes being an international student difficult, on top of our already complex culture and language. Assimilation assistance must come from numerous sources to aid these young people embarking on their life’s journey. Most struggle in their efforts and need guidance from schools’ international departments, immigration protection, host families, concerned neighbors and fellow students, and even informative books to extend a cultural helping hand so we all have a win-win situation.
An award-winning worldwide book/ebook that reaches out to help anyone coming to the US is “What Foreigners Need To Know About America From A To Z: How to Understand Crazy American Culture, People, Government, Business, Language and More.” It is used in foreign Fulbright student programs and endorsed worldwide by ambassadors, educators, and editors. It also identifies “foreigners” who became successful in the US and how they’ve contributed to our society, including students.
A chapter on education explains how to be accepted to an American university and cope with a confusing new culture, friendship process and daunting classroom differences. Some stay after graduation. It has chapters that explain how US businesses operate and how to get a job (which differs from most countries), a must for those who want to work with/for an American firm here or overseas.
It also has chapters that identify the most common English grammar and speech problems foreigners have and tips for easily overcoming them, the number one stumbling block they say they have to succeeding here.
Good luck to all wherever you study or wherever you come from, because that is the TRUE spirit of the American PEOPLE, not a few in government who have the loudest voice!
Seriously, U.S. should compare the asylum system to the F-1 system. In the Chinese community, i don’t see any different between the F-1 population and the asylee population. Any immigration attorney knows, the only different is one knows how to hire an asylum attorney and the other didn’t. On top of that, comparing the benefit in H1b route to the benefit in marriage route is absurd. There’s just no incentive to contribute for any F-1 category immigrants once they compare their class benefit to the others. F-1 is a joke, eventually, it’s all about luck (lottery h1b) and subject to spoliation of the employers.