The Case For Aligning US Higher Education and Immigration Policy

Welcoming legal immigrants into our institutions of higher learning enriches and educates them. We provide the resources, mentoring, and financial assistance needed for these immigrants to grow in their field. In return, they provide new insights and creativity that simply isn’t available without the contributions of other cultures. Together, legal immigrants and American citizens work together to conduct research that impacts the nation and the world.

The school must be SEVP-approved (Student and Exchange Visitor Program), and students must be interviewed and approved prior to enrollment. Spouses and children are allowed to come with the student to the United States, but must also enroll in SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System) and be approved for a visa. It also stipulates that holders must leave the United States within 60 days of completion of their academic program.

In 2017, the US issued 393,000 F-1 academic study visas. This represents a nearly 39% drop in F-1 visa issuance from the recent-year high in 2015.

In effect, we are educating the world’s best and brightest, then telling 78% of the immigrants among them to take these highly specialized skills and extensive field knowledge out of the United States. For 2017 alone, this represents more than $246 billion lost in future government revenues. All in all, our current immigration policy costs the government one trillion dollars in future revenues every four years, due to loss of technical skill in fields that are often filled by specialized legal immigrants.

The net fiscal contribution of a new immigrant and immigrant children over a 75-year period is positive. Well-educated immigrants provide an even larger positive impact, due to the United States progressive tax system, in which more contributions are drawn from those who are highly educated.

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