Brain drain in US with immigrants heading home to begin businesses

United States, 22nd August: With majority of immigrants choosing to head back to their home nations to begin businesses, the US is struggling to cope up with brain drain, states the findings of the latest research by Kauffman Foundation on immigrant entrepreneurs in the US.

Better opportunities await immigrant entrepreneurs in India, China than the US--According to the lead author of the study undertaken a Kansas City non-profit organization, Vivek Wadhwa, there has been a serious shift in the trend with regard to staying in the US permanently.

Way back in 1980s, more and more high-skilled immigrant entrepreneurs set up businesses in the US and opted to stay there permanently.

But, as of now, things are quite different, says Wadhwa. The US is not any preferred destination for high-skilled immigrants wanting to set up new businesses, the author writes. Wadhwa himself immigrated to the US in 1980 and set up two firms resulting in creation of around 1,000 US jobs.

The study was based on 153 immigrants who decided to move back home to China or India from the US for setting up of new business there.

The study affirms that this has led to a serious problem of brain drain in the US. Around 81 percent of Chinese migrants and 72 percent of Indians admitted of better opportunities for setting up of new businesses in their native nations than the US.

Flawed US immigration policy-root cause of problems--Wadhwa, who is presently research director at Duke Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization, feels the problem is much serious than just brain drain in the US.

And he owes this problem to the loopholes in the US immigration policy that forces a large number of aspiring immigrant entrepreneurs to wait for several years before getting US Green Card.

This leads to stagnancy in the professional careers of the concerned immigrant entrepreneurs, adds Wadhwa, who is also a senior research associate at Harvard Law School.

Solution for controlling US brain drain—Better opportunities must be given by the US to immigrant entrepreneurs to help them begin new businesses here, argues Wadhwa. One such step should be US StartUp Visa Act by the Congress to allow immigrant entrepreneurs come and stay here permanently.

This would result in creation of thousands of jobs in the long term apart from creating several jobs immediately.