BUT US universities remain extremely attractive to foreign students pursuing graduate degrees these fields, and these students would often prefer to remain in the US after the completion of their studies. Unfortunately, it is rather difficult for them to do so, given current immigration law. Congress failed to act to fix this problem. The bill, HR 6429, introduced by Lamar Smith (R-TX), as far as I can tell without reading it really carefully, was a corrupted version of a Democrat-sponsored bill -- corrupted in a way that would reduce opportunities for legal immigration, so Democrats voted against it.
Some conservative commentators also opposed the bill that was voted on because they said, that would make it more difficult for US students to get in to STEM graduate programs. There's just one problem with this logic: The US students are not there. There are not enough qualified US students applying for graduate school in STEM fields to take up the available slots.
Here's the emailed blurb from the AAAS that I received:
STEM Jobs Act Fails in House. Last week the House of Representatives failed to pass a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) immigration bill introduced by Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX). The STEM Jobs Act of 2012 (H.R. 6429) would have replaced the current system of awarding permanent residency visas via a lottery system with one that would award visas to foreign nationals who have earned a Ph.D. or master's degree from a U.S. university in a STEM field. Smith's bill was introduced after negotiations over broader immigration reform failed, but there are hopes that some compromise may be reached during the post-election lame-duck session. A competing approach that would maintain both a lottery visa system and a STEM-degree visa system was Rep. Zoe Lofgren's (D-CA) bill, the Attracting the Best and Brightest Act of 2012 (H.R. 6412). Ultimately, the Smith bill became caught in a political divide over the importance of maintaining the existing lottery system which benefits immigrants from developing countries such as Africa. Smith's bill received 257 votes in support, with 158 opposed, but the measure fell 20 votes short of the two-thirds majority that was required by having the bill rushed to the House floor without committee approval.More information can be found here:
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/09/stem-visa-bill-falls-short-in-us.html?ref=hp
I hope something gets accomplished in the lame duck session. Sending really smart physics PhDs and engineers with MS degrees back to China because we don't want to allow them to stay in this country is a policy that ought to be changed.
Yes, there is a global political economy side to all this. Ibn Khaldun, a 14th century social theorist, would not have been surprised at how the US is slipping relative to the rest of the world in innovative capacity. That happens to polities, Ibn Khaldun would argue, once the people get comfortable with their lives. Americans are rich and comfortable. We're not as driven as we used to be. The Cold War is no longer providing a rationale to invest in STEM fields in order to beat the Soviets; the comfortable standard of living that we have (for the most part) and the continuing myth of US leadership in tech fields means that we don't have a compelling incentive to push ahead further relative to the rest of the world. We're happy to rest on our laurels. And that, Ibn Khaldun would argue, is a sign of a declining polity. I am enough of an economic nationalist to want the US to be a STEM leader in the world. On the other hand, I am not interested in a renewal of the Cold War, and my laurels seem pretty comfy. (I didn't pursue a STEM field!) So is there a way to escape the creeping mediocrity that Ibn Khaldun predicts? Is encouraging immigration of tech savvy folks the answer? I think it is at least part of the answer, especially in a globalized world in which corporations are increasingly likely to outsource R&D.
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