Title:
What to Do About 'Reverse Brain Drain' in US?
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
Congress is studying how to change immigration
policies in an effort to get more foreign students
to stay and work in the United States. Many foreign
students come for advanced degrees in science,
technology, engineering and math. But many are
unable to get a visa to live and work here after
they graduate. In two thousand nine, foreign
students earned up to two-thirds of the physics and
engineering doctorates awarded by American colleges
and universities.Xiao Qin from Beijing is studying
for a PhD in computer science at Georgetown
University in Washington. He says, "Obviously, we
prefer to stay here for several years, but if we
cannot get any valid visa we have to leave."So far
no agreement has been reached on how to stop this
so-called reverse brain drain. The loss of highly
skilled workers usually involves developing
countries losing them to wealthier ones. Critics say
American immigration policies are too restrictive.
Representative Zoe Lofgren is a Democrat who
represents parts of Silicon Valley in California.
She spoke at a recent congressional hearing: "While
we once asked the brightest minds in the world to
come and make their homes here, we now turn them
away. Having educated and trained the world's best
students in our universities, we no longer welcome
them to enrich this nation."Some companies,
including Texas Instruments, say it can take ten
years for their foreign workers to become permanent
residents. Darla Whitaker is a senior vice president
at Texas Instruments. She says, "This is is not
sustainable. It hurts our company and our industry
and it places burdens and stresses on our
employees."The United States limits the number of
immigrants from other countries on a
country-by-country basis. Students from countries
with large populations generally have to wait the
longest for a "green card," or proof of permanent
residency. A group called the National Foundation
for American Policy says a highly skilled Indian
worker could have to wait up to seventy years. Vivek
Wadhwa studies immigrants who start their own
companies. He says the United States needs to change
its immigration policies. He says, "If we don't keep
these people, if we don't compete, we're going to
lose. We're going to become a third world country
and they're going to become like us." For VOA
Special English, I'm Carolyn Presutti. We have
transcripts and MP3s of our programs and now PDFs
for e-readers at voaspecialenglish.com.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
