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China provides many opportunities for its citizens to study abroad and expand their horizons, and the US is happy to take that money and nearly free brain labor

China provides many opportunities for its citizens to study abroad and expand their horizons, and the US is happy to take that money and nearly free brain labor. But when the fruits of all that training is ripe to pluck, the scale flips and now it is a fight between those two countries to retain the talents. And the US is losing badly. Maybe China is playing it dirty and forces these scientists to come back. Or maybe it is simply that the US immigration is so hostile they don't see a future here. One of the main reasons people tried to go here is because of a chance of a better life. But when the naturalization process is so grueling and drawn out, they just don't bother anymore. Especially when China in big cities is providing pretty high standards of living to its citizens. Sure, "freedom" and "human rights" are something but frankly, those concerns are not relevant when we are talking about the upper class Han people. Stereotypes of rich Asian international students exist for a reason and that is because many of them come from rich and influential families. To these people, as long as you don't stir things up politically, they will feel safer and enjoy more rights in China than in the US. Lots of US citizens do not understand the pain of immigration. It is in every way a demeaning and torturous process. You get treated like second class human beings and are forced to fight and prove you deserve something others were simply born with. There must be an incentive for these people to endure that kind of process. And for many Chinese whose homeland in every way a direct competitor to the US, there aren't enough reasons.

injb 3y ago
>>> It is in every way a demeaning and torturous process. You get treated like second class human beings and are forced to fight and prove you deserve something others were simply born with Did you have a very bad experience with US immigration? I've been dealing with it for a couple of decades, from non immigrant visas to GC and while its definitely a pain in the ass, it hasn't been anything like that^. There's a lot of waiting, and a lot of uncertainty and anxiety but it was never personal for me or anyone I know.
- eatbitseveryday 3y ago
  I would agree. Immigration experience depends on your situation. Marriage to a citizen has been simple. Same with parents to a citizen.
  - theanti9 3y ago
    As the US citizen partner to an immigrant who now has their green card from our marriage, it was anything but simple. It is definitely the simplest way, by far, but it is not simple. It was very eye opening to me to see the journey from the inside.
- tmpX7dMeXU 3y ago
  There was just a few days ago an AMA by a US immigration lawyer filed to the brim with stories of rich tech workers in all sorts of ridiculous scenarios at the hands of absurd US immigration policy and personnel.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    Links to all of those threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=proberts https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=proberts They're all pretty big with hundreds of comments so if you remember any specific story please link it.
- tomohelix 3y ago
  The only thing I can say is that yes I had bad experiences with them. The kinds of scrutiny and restrictions they put on me made me feel like a criminal even though I have not even a speeding ticket in this country. I am not comfortable saying anything else. May I ask what is your birth country? From what I know, it depends a lot on where you come from.
  - wonder_er 3y ago
    the us immigration system is deeply dehumanizing. The presumptions, control, classism, the authoritarian language, the implication that access to some perfect garden is being granted, that the lucky recipient will never want to leave... it's like some performative piece of propaganda, that you' must participate in, enthusiastically, in order to get the reward. (permission from the state to enter "it's" borders.) at a prior company, a coworker was a young, single, pakistani male. the company was remote-first, did company meetups twice a year. About 30 or 40 people, maybe. Anyway, every time he entered the USA, we'd lament together about the litany of indignities he'd suffer at the hands of various authorities. It was sort of like filling out a bingo card. I did a lot of apologizing, and explaining how xenophobia has been baked deeply into american institutions.
- baby 3y ago
  Personally I got married due to visa issues and then had to leave the US for a year and a half (spent in London) until we got the greencard. This and all the paperwork and the shitty way they talk to people at the border is nothing compared to the other people I know that either couldn’t work (or their spouse couldn’t work) due to the visa type OR they were slaves of their employers til they got their greencard. Fuck US immigration. That being said I’ve heard my country (France) isn’t that much better when it comes to handling immigration.
  - Tozen 3y ago
    The way that immigration is handled by many countries is just as bad, if not way worse. So when pointing the finger, many need to also look at the immigration policies of their own countries, to get a balanced perspective.
- chaostheory 3y ago
  My experience matched yours, and I am not Caucasian, but I completed mine well over a decade ago and it was a normal application. I believe immigration policy has had a major change around seven years ago for the worse. This is anecdotal, but one of my uni friends is a from an allied country (S Korea) and he had a terrible experience. I don’t remember all the details, but the process seems years longer now and they treated him like he was an enemy spy even though he’s been here for decades prior, has published several papers, and likely has no connections with anything sketchy. Most people would have just said fuck it and went back home. Thankfully, he endured and is now tenured as a CompE prof. Imo the US is likely no longer reaping the benefits from the brain drain due to the new draconian policies for legal immigration. It is a dumb (or even racist) overreaction when you lump in even people from allied countries in light of the chip war
- rented_mule 3y ago
  I'm a natural-born US citizen and it has repeatedly been a serious pain for me. One such case... I was managing a team that was hiring someone away from another company. That person was in the US on an H-1B visa. When we put in the application to transfer her visa, the government responded with an RFE (Request For Evidence). They wanted evidence that we truly needed her skills, that we couldn't find a US citizen with the same skills, and that we weren't just a staffing agency (the last one was silly - the company is a household name in the US with a large engineering org and no connection whatsoever to staffing). Our immigration lawyers' first advice was to rescind the offer as it wasn't worth the work unless the new hire was truly exceptional. This was at a time when RFE success rates where at an all time low (our lawyers told us to expect a 90% chance of failure). We believed she was worth it, so we decided to move forward. The lawyers also told us that we only get one shot - there is no second chance or appeal. So you must provide overwhelming evidence. It consumed my time for weeks, making all kinds of other things fall behind, all with no guarantee of paying off. And she was riddled with stress throughout the process. The lawyers gave me a laundry list of tasks to do. I ended up producing ~100 pages of documentation about what the team did, what she would do in a typical day, examples of what her work product would be, how it was connected to the company's business, and why it required a graduate degree in mathematics. Some of that was difficult as our lawyers said I couldn't reveal the nature of our proprietary algorithms because these documents are treated as private. On top of demonstrating that it required a graduate degree, we had to demonstrate why a US citizen with nothing more than a high school education could not do the job (and evidence that a PhD in math was needed was not enough according to our lawyers). Part of it involved me spending two hours being interviewed by a math prof from a top US university. The first hour was convincing him that I knew enough math to know what I was talking about (kind of like my first math final in 30 years). Then explaining enough about the systems the team worked on to convince him that it required an advanced math degree. Luckily he was fascinated by our problems/solutions and every idea he brought up about approaches to try were things we had already incorporated or ruled out. Helping him understand why they did / did not work ended up being pretty convincing. After we supplied our RFE response, we waited for another month or two. Luckily her transfer was approved. She started a week later and I'm glad we put in the work - she was amazing. To tie it back to the article, two years later she left to move back to China because she wanted to have kids and she didn't want them exposed to the overt racism that she faced in the US (especially the horrific behavior she faced in the weeks leading up to lockdown). And going back was no easy task. She applied for jobs at ~20 companies there. She received two offers and took one of them in Beijing. When she got there, she learned that they had over 1,000 applicants with PhDs for the single position she filled. It's hard to imagine that level of competition. We wouldn't have had to go through the RFE pain if so much talent were available in the US. But she was happy to face that competition to raise her kids in China.
TrainedMonkey 3y ago
This is surprising to hear, is there any hard data on this? My naive assumption would be that US benefits from brain drain in vast majority of situations.
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
Odd to frame it that we're losing badly because /some/ Chinese scientists are going back to China but tons of them are still staying here, and the reverse is simply not happening at any scale. If you want to see America in decline, you'll see it everywhere you look.
- AYBABTME 3y ago
  Losing badly against the status quo. The trend is in the wrong direction, even though in absolute numbers the US is still winning the talent war. But not if it keeps changing this way. Immigration is no small feat and when the US govt throws suspicions at immigrants and makes their life difficult, it becomes an easy choice to call it quit, admit defeat and just go back to a known quantity where you'll be treated better. I bet you if the US attitude was opposite, the vast majority of these folks wouldn't go back.
  - dirtyid 3y ago
    >US is still winning the talent war Hard to say, PRC generating ~5M STEM per year which is multiple times more than US can generate via domestic education and brain drain. That's the skilled human capita gap where US is losing hard, PRC adding conservatively more than 5x more STEM talent per year, set to pass US total STEM workforce of 35M within next few years (PRC STEM @ ~20M as of 2020), and medium term (2050) PRC on trend have 50-100M STEM. It's not so much US decline as PRC ascend and relative gap massively swinging in PRC favour well past 2050s. Now factor in indigenous PRC academic and S&T industries have increasingly more opportunties retaining more and more tier1 PRC talent, the fact that best PRC talent don't flood into west anymore - this isn't the 00s where PRC best was sent abroad as state policy or natural outflow due to lack of domestic opportunities. Even international students are now mostly B tier talents that couldn't hack it in PRC gaokao but had wealthy enough families to send them abroad. TLDR US can't compete on generating talent vs PRC massive population base effect + human capital production via academic reforms coming to fruition, and US brain drain of PRC talent (itself reducing due to geopolitics as mentioned in this article) can no longer meaningfully inhibit PRC talent pipeline.
dotnet00 3y ago
Agreed, the US immigration system is only just barely decent to you if you're a highly skilled scientist in an in-demand field, but when your home country is quickly catching up on offering good opportunities and can pay more relative to cost of living, it's understandable that they're increasingly choosing not to stay. Especially if they're of Chinese or Russian origin, it's many years of fighting to prove you deserve to be here with increased scrutiny whenever it's politically favorable for whoever is in charge. Even with India, immigration is such a grueling process, with just another decade or so of development to create more opportunities and we'll probably be seeing a similar process with Indians. India even has a slightly lower barrier in that compared to Russia and China there's less totalitarianism to make people prefer the US.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  US Immigration is insufferable no matter where you're from.
- ChumpGPT 3y ago
  US Immigration bad? 3 million Indian H1B's have arrived in the last 20 or so years. How can it be bad? The US accepts more immigrants every year than any other country in the world, how can it be bad?
  - chii 3y ago
    H1Bs are not citizens, unlike naturalized immigrants. They are effectively "indentured servants" of the company that sponsored them, and have a gruelling 10-20 yr application process to gain full citizenship. The fact that you don't know this is exactly what the OP was referring to, since most US natural born citizens don't know about it much.
    - Grazester 3y ago
      This is not true for all H1B visa holders. I know many who have obtained their permanent residency after a few years. This is not in the IT field though but medical field.
TX81Z 3y ago
I think you’re vastly overestimating the degree to which the us government wants to keep them here, and I’d be far from surprised to see caps put in place for Chinese student visas within the next five years.
tho234234324 3y ago
On the flip side; what exactly does US society provide to Chinese (and to a lesser extent, Indians) ? They're constantly demonized by the media. They're treated as essentially 'devil-worshipping' orientals ('Communism' for China; 'Hinduism' for Indians). They have to deal with 60s-era racially-motivated immigration laws that limit the same number of Green-Cards for Norway/Sweden (and other tiny 5-million large countries) as that for each of China/India. On some level the Americans (and Westerners) can't come to terms with their own glaring hypocrisy. They are intense ethno-nationalists but will pretend to be anything but, and claim their own culture is universal and anyone who doesn't subscribe to it is the devil's pawn. (To wit, the LGBTQ flag is now a more obvious fixture in front of US embassies). Asians are too, but they aren't obsessed with it, nor do they over do it due to not having a 'religion' hang over them culturally (other than ofc. when they're 'saved' by some occidental import; Buddhism etc. are not 'religions'). Indians atleast have to contend with essentially a vestigial-colonial state that is essentially a kleptocracy which just happens to be run by people who're 'liked' by the 'global elite' because they're, very much like zealous RW Xtian nuts, destroying India's historical 'pagan' culture and language (India's constitution for instance denies Hindus religious rights, unlike that for Xtians/Muslims; and imposes English on a large population that barely understands it). China (like imperial Japan) too was 'liked' when they were destroying their own culture/traditions for 'secular Xtianity'. Not anymore I guess.
- baby 3y ago
  I half agree. What pisses me off though is that a lot of Chinese people who immigrate to the US still can’t say anything bad about their own country and just shove any criticism under the idea that western media just hates China. I’d pick US nationalism over Chinese nationalism.
  - senttoschool 3y ago
    It's not that they can't say anything bad about China. It's just that everything said about China is negative in the US. When was the last time you read something positive about China in the mainstream media? 1.4 billion people and nothing good happens there according to western media. That's just propaganda.
ChumpGPT 3y ago
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigration-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigrati... >The United States is home to the highest number of immigrants in the world. An estimated 50.6 million people in the United States—a bit more than 15% of the total population of 331.4 million—were born in a foreign country. The number of immigrants in the U.S. has increased by at least 400% since 1965. By the way, the USA takes more immigrants every year than any other country in the world. I myself went through the process and was treated with complete respect and it wasn't easy but well worth it to become an American and be welcomed into the Land of Milk and Honey.
- tomohelix 3y ago
  The US was a lot of things. It still is on some fronts, but others have seen decline. Your experience was certainly true. It is why so many are trying to come here. But things have changed and the experience is not what it used to be. If you think it was difficult before, think about how it has to be now for people to choose to go back instead of persevering. The trend is clear. Things changed. The US can either fix it and remain competitive by hoarding talents. Or it will continue to deteriorate. There are always warning signs. Immigration laws has been called antiquated and desperately in need of reform for a long time. Your sentiment of "it was good in my time" is how hegemons like Britain fell.
- Baloo 3y ago
  Maybe they have the highest number of immigrants, but as a percentage of the population other nations are higher and USA is very far down. Canada, Norway, Sweden are all higher... USA isn't even in the top 50 when looking at total % of the population.
  - refurb 3y ago
    Those countries aren't even in the top 10 of the highest percentage of immigrants. Countries like Monaco, Bahrain, Qatar, Hong Kong are in the >40% while Canada, Norway, Sweden are all < 20%. The US is 15%. All about the same. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigration-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigrati...
tracerbulletx 3y ago
How would a US citizen be treated trying to immigrate to China?
- balderdash 3y ago
  well they would no longer be allowed to be a US citizen...
balderdash 3y ago
how is it "a demeaning and torturous process", above and beyond dealing with any faceless bureaucracy (i.e. dealing with the DMV, IRS, or even airline lost baggage departments, or your local cable company)? "you get treated like second class human beings and are forced to fight and prove you deserve something others were simply born with." isn't this effectively the situation with immigrating to any desirable country (and even some undesirable ones)?
- tomohelix 3y ago
  The irony is in how the US claims to be all about equality and opportunity. But then it treats one of the most productive classes of its residents as second class who do not deserve some basic legal protections. Still, to answer your question, the difference is in the number of dealings an immigrant has to go through and the consequences if any of these goes badly. If you mess up your DMV meeting every 5 years, no big deal. You failed to update your address in your annual license renewal as an immigrant? That is a potential black mark that can get your green card denied and your life ruined. Maybe it is the case for every country to treat immigrants like that. But when the US is built by immigrants, it should have an incentive to do better than that. Otherwise, why would people immigrate here instead of all the other "desirable" countries, or maybe just come back home? In such situations, sure, the US hasn't done wrong. It simply had done worse than it used to. And that can be a subjective sign of decline depending on how you look at it.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  Well, for starters, there are many points of the process where your entire future is down to the mood of the immigration officer at the airport. Making it so that the safest way to not have to potentially uproot your entire life in hours is to just keep your head down and be a good little indentured servant until you get lucky in a lottery. Happened to travel internationally, either to see family for a week or for a conference in the 3 years between finishing your education and getting a chance at an H1B? Maybe they'll let you back in, maybe they won't, no one can say. Happened to study and work here for over a decade, slaved away for an employer to convince them to sponsor your residency?, Employer screws up your green card application after pushing it off till the H1B limit, you get screwed and have to leave with zero recourse. It's no wonder illegal immigration is such a big issue here, especially with sanctuary cities, you come and stay illegally and governments will bend over backwards to help you stay, you come here, get an advanced education and work hard to remain in legal status for a significant chunk of your life, supporting yourself financially and giving back to the country and you get kicked out for something that wasn't even your fault. In comparison DMVs and even the IRS aren't renowned for being in the habit of completely wrecking someone's life's plans over the mood of one random person. There are pretty blatantly wrong things people have to do (and keep doing) for the DMV or IRS to have a similar impact on their lives.
gsatic 3y ago
Also Chinese food is just way better.
resonious 3y ago
I have a colleague from China who originally tried to move to the US. He became so disillusioned by the process that he gave up and tried Japan instead, as it provides a similar level of freedom. Within 3 years of just working a regular software job and studying the language, he got permanent residency. A lawyer did all of the heavy lifting. Just an anecdote, but maybe an example of the US losing talent to its insane immigration system.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  Japan is a nation whose birthrates are so low its own government speaks of extinction of the japanese people. They aren't exactly in a position to refuse immigrants. The US won't be either if current trends continue.
tjs8rj 3y ago
The immigration system has a duty to the citizens, not to the immigrants - except as far as it preserves human rights and serves the citizens. You’re not entitled to citizenship. We didn’t get it by birth alone, we got it because our lineage dedicated their life to building this country into what it is and passed it on to their children. That you have this entitlement towards US citizenship means you don’t deserve it at all.
- jasmer 3y ago
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- tomohelix 3y ago
  >We didn’t get it by birth alone That is false. Check the 14th amendment on jus soli. Your own constitution, written by the founders of your country disagrees with you. By standards of the US citizenship test. You do not qualify for citizenship. See how arbitrary it is? Also statistically, per person, immigrants contribute to the US more than its own citizens. Your attempt of using "lineage" is so ridiculous I don't know what to say. If you truly believe that, then we should have kings and queens again because their "lineages" sure are prestigious and contribute a lot to the country. But of course, the US founders were vehemently against it, as written in the constitution and the declaration of independence. So I guess you again proved you failed the citizenship test.
  - tjs8rj 3y ago
    I know you receive citizenship with birth on US soil, but that wasn’t implemented because the state has some obligation to someone simply due to the dirt above which they were born. The reason that law was implemented was to recognize the states duty to the offspring of the people of the nation. Do you really think the framers of the 14th amendment would agree with loopholes like “anchor babies”? Of course not, because while they were born here, the intent behind the 14th was to grant immediate citizenship to the offspring of the people who built the country. This is what I mean. Anchor babies were an unforeseen flaw. It’s not arbitrary. You think it’s arbitrary because you have the impression that the US is just some economic zone with a basket of benefits. ITS NOT. We’re a nation of people. The nation and its people have no obligation to you or any other non member of the people. YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO IT. Why do you think you deserve citizenship? You think so because it would benefit you, not thinking for a second whether you’d benefit the nation or it’s people. Given that you view the country this way, you don’t deserve it either. We’re not a basket of benefits to be plundered by the whole world. The duty of the nation is to its people and them alone. Immigrants come only if they are a benefit to the people and the people want them. The state acts on behalf of the people in this mission.
jasmer 3y ago
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goodbyesf 3y ago
> and the US is happy to take that money US is or our colleges are? > Maybe China is playing it dirty and forces these scientists to come back. Or maybe 'China provides many opportunities for its citizens to study abroad and expand their horizons' and their citizens want to help their own country in turn? > Sure, "freedom" and "human rights" are something but frankly Nobody immigrates for 'freedom' and 'human rights'? Everyone immigrates for 'better life' - money. And what freedom and human rights do the chinese lack? > You get treated like second class human beings and are forced to fight and prove you deserve something others were simply born with. Good. Why should non-citizens be treated the same as citizens? Every country should treat their citizens better than non-citizens. > There must be an incentive for these people to endure that kind of process. 'Freedom' and 'human rights'. Funny isn't it? It's sounds so stupid when you say it out loud and yet the dumb masses believe it. > And for many Chinese whose homeland in every way a direct competitor to the US, there aren't enough reasons. Good. It means china is advancing and providing opportunities for their own people. These chinese scientists should go home and help create china's harvard, mit, etc. And hopefully india, south america, africa and rest of the world follows china's example. The blueprint is there and if china is able to develop then so can the rest of the world.
zephrx1111 3y ago
Is it just simply because there were 5 folds more Chinese people study in US from a decade ago? I don’t like the word “send”. AFAIK China was not paying for their tuitions.
marfil 3y ago
This is true, but not exclusive to China and the Chinese people. I've immigrated to the US from Europe about 13 years ago and it was a very legally and financially painful process. I've since acquired a B.S.,M.S.,and a Ph.D. in a highly desirable specialization and haven't been able to find a job in the US. This country has left me poor, in debt and hopeless. My wife and I are packing our bags and moving back to Europe. I don't see any opportunity for myself or my children in this declining, chaotic, money hungry country.

injb 3y ago

>>> It is in every way a demeaning and torturous process. You get treated like second class human beings and are forced to fight and prove you deserve something others were simply born with Did you have a very bad experience with US immigration? I've been dealing with it for a couple of decades, from non immigrant visas to GC and while its definitely a pain in the ass, it hasn't been anything like that^. There's a lot of waiting, and a lot of uncertainty and anxiety but it was never personal for me or anyone I know.

eatbitseveryday 3y ago
I would agree. Immigration experience depends on your situation. Marriage to a citizen has been simple. Same with parents to a citizen.
- theanti9 3y ago
  As the US citizen partner to an immigrant who now has their green card from our marriage, it was anything but simple. It is definitely the simplest way, by far, but it is not simple. It was very eye opening to me to see the journey from the inside.
tmpX7dMeXU 3y ago
There was just a few days ago an AMA by a US immigration lawyer filed to the brim with stories of rich tech workers in all sorts of ridiculous scenarios at the hands of absurd US immigration policy and personnel.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  Links to all of those threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=proberts https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=proberts They're all pretty big with hundreds of comments so if you remember any specific story please link it.
tomohelix 3y ago
The only thing I can say is that yes I had bad experiences with them. The kinds of scrutiny and restrictions they put on me made me feel like a criminal even though I have not even a speeding ticket in this country. I am not comfortable saying anything else. May I ask what is your birth country? From what I know, it depends a lot on where you come from.
- wonder_er 3y ago
  the us immigration system is deeply dehumanizing. The presumptions, control, classism, the authoritarian language, the implication that access to some perfect garden is being granted, that the lucky recipient will never want to leave... it's like some performative piece of propaganda, that you' must participate in, enthusiastically, in order to get the reward. (permission from the state to enter "it's" borders.) at a prior company, a coworker was a young, single, pakistani male. the company was remote-first, did company meetups twice a year. About 30 or 40 people, maybe. Anyway, every time he entered the USA, we'd lament together about the litany of indignities he'd suffer at the hands of various authorities. It was sort of like filling out a bingo card. I did a lot of apologizing, and explaining how xenophobia has been baked deeply into american institutions.
baby 3y ago
Personally I got married due to visa issues and then had to leave the US for a year and a half (spent in London) until we got the greencard. This and all the paperwork and the shitty way they talk to people at the border is nothing compared to the other people I know that either couldn’t work (or their spouse couldn’t work) due to the visa type OR they were slaves of their employers til they got their greencard. Fuck US immigration. That being said I’ve heard my country (France) isn’t that much better when it comes to handling immigration.
- Tozen 3y ago
  The way that immigration is handled by many countries is just as bad, if not way worse. So when pointing the finger, many need to also look at the immigration policies of their own countries, to get a balanced perspective.
chaostheory 3y ago
My experience matched yours, and I am not Caucasian, but I completed mine well over a decade ago and it was a normal application. I believe immigration policy has had a major change around seven years ago for the worse. This is anecdotal, but one of my uni friends is a from an allied country (S Korea) and he had a terrible experience. I don’t remember all the details, but the process seems years longer now and they treated him like he was an enemy spy even though he’s been here for decades prior, has published several papers, and likely has no connections with anything sketchy. Most people would have just said fuck it and went back home. Thankfully, he endured and is now tenured as a CompE prof. Imo the US is likely no longer reaping the benefits from the brain drain due to the new draconian policies for legal immigration. It is a dumb (or even racist) overreaction when you lump in even people from allied countries in light of the chip war
rented_mule 3y ago
I'm a natural-born US citizen and it has repeatedly been a serious pain for me. One such case... I was managing a team that was hiring someone away from another company. That person was in the US on an H-1B visa. When we put in the application to transfer her visa, the government responded with an RFE (Request For Evidence). They wanted evidence that we truly needed her skills, that we couldn't find a US citizen with the same skills, and that we weren't just a staffing agency (the last one was silly - the company is a household name in the US with a large engineering org and no connection whatsoever to staffing). Our immigration lawyers' first advice was to rescind the offer as it wasn't worth the work unless the new hire was truly exceptional. This was at a time when RFE success rates where at an all time low (our lawyers told us to expect a 90% chance of failure). We believed she was worth it, so we decided to move forward. The lawyers also told us that we only get one shot - there is no second chance or appeal. So you must provide overwhelming evidence. It consumed my time for weeks, making all kinds of other things fall behind, all with no guarantee of paying off. And she was riddled with stress throughout the process. The lawyers gave me a laundry list of tasks to do. I ended up producing ~100 pages of documentation about what the team did, what she would do in a typical day, examples of what her work product would be, how it was connected to the company's business, and why it required a graduate degree in mathematics. Some of that was difficult as our lawyers said I couldn't reveal the nature of our proprietary algorithms because these documents are treated as private. On top of demonstrating that it required a graduate degree, we had to demonstrate why a US citizen with nothing more than a high school education could not do the job (and evidence that a PhD in math was needed was not enough according to our lawyers). Part of it involved me spending two hours being interviewed by a math prof from a top US university. The first hour was convincing him that I knew enough math to know what I was talking about (kind of like my first math final in 30 years). Then explaining enough about the systems the team worked on to convince him that it required an advanced math degree. Luckily he was fascinated by our problems/solutions and every idea he brought up about approaches to try were things we had already incorporated or ruled out. Helping him understand why they did / did not work ended up being pretty convincing. After we supplied our RFE response, we waited for another month or two. Luckily her transfer was approved. She started a week later and I'm glad we put in the work - she was amazing. To tie it back to the article, two years later she left to move back to China because she wanted to have kids and she didn't want them exposed to the overt racism that she faced in the US (especially the horrific behavior she faced in the weeks leading up to lockdown). And going back was no easy task. She applied for jobs at ~20 companies there. She received two offers and took one of them in Beijing. When she got there, she learned that they had over 1,000 applicants with PhDs for the single position she filled. It's hard to imagine that level of competition. We wouldn't have had to go through the RFE pain if so much talent were available in the US. But she was happy to face that competition to raise her kids in China.

TrainedMonkey 3y ago

This is surprising to hear, is there any hard data on this? My naive assumption would be that US benefits from brain drain in vast majority of situations.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago

Odd to frame it that we're losing badly because /some/ Chinese scientists are going back to China but tons of them are still staying here, and the reverse is simply not happening at any scale. If you want to see America in decline, you'll see it everywhere you look.

AYBABTME 3y ago
Losing badly against the status quo. The trend is in the wrong direction, even though in absolute numbers the US is still winning the talent war. But not if it keeps changing this way. Immigration is no small feat and when the US govt throws suspicions at immigrants and makes their life difficult, it becomes an easy choice to call it quit, admit defeat and just go back to a known quantity where you'll be treated better. I bet you if the US attitude was opposite, the vast majority of these folks wouldn't go back.
- dirtyid 3y ago
  >US is still winning the talent war Hard to say, PRC generating ~5M STEM per year which is multiple times more than US can generate via domestic education and brain drain. That's the skilled human capita gap where US is losing hard, PRC adding conservatively more than 5x more STEM talent per year, set to pass US total STEM workforce of 35M within next few years (PRC STEM @ ~20M as of 2020), and medium term (2050) PRC on trend have 50-100M STEM. It's not so much US decline as PRC ascend and relative gap massively swinging in PRC favour well past 2050s. Now factor in indigenous PRC academic and S&T industries have increasingly more opportunties retaining more and more tier1 PRC talent, the fact that best PRC talent don't flood into west anymore - this isn't the 00s where PRC best was sent abroad as state policy or natural outflow due to lack of domestic opportunities. Even international students are now mostly B tier talents that couldn't hack it in PRC gaokao but had wealthy enough families to send them abroad. TLDR US can't compete on generating talent vs PRC massive population base effect + human capital production via academic reforms coming to fruition, and US brain drain of PRC talent (itself reducing due to geopolitics as mentioned in this article) can no longer meaningfully inhibit PRC talent pipeline.

dotnet00 3y ago

Agreed, the US immigration system is only just barely decent to you if you're a highly skilled scientist in an in-demand field, but when your home country is quickly catching up on offering good opportunities and can pay more relative to cost of living, it's understandable that they're increasingly choosing not to stay. Especially if they're of Chinese or Russian origin, it's many years of fighting to prove you deserve to be here with increased scrutiny whenever it's politically favorable for whoever is in charge. Even with India, immigration is such a grueling process, with just another decade or so of development to create more opportunities and we'll probably be seeing a similar process with Indians. India even has a slightly lower barrier in that compared to Russia and China there's less totalitarianism to make people prefer the US.

jacquesm 3y ago
US Immigration is insufferable no matter where you're from.
ChumpGPT 3y ago
US Immigration bad? 3 million Indian H1B's have arrived in the last 20 or so years. How can it be bad? The US accepts more immigrants every year than any other country in the world, how can it be bad?
- chii 3y ago
  H1Bs are not citizens, unlike naturalized immigrants. They are effectively "indentured servants" of the company that sponsored them, and have a gruelling 10-20 yr application process to gain full citizenship. The fact that you don't know this is exactly what the OP was referring to, since most US natural born citizens don't know about it much.
  - Grazester 3y ago
    This is not true for all H1B visa holders. I know many who have obtained their permanent residency after a few years. This is not in the IT field though but medical field.

TX81Z 3y ago

I think you’re vastly overestimating the degree to which the us government wants to keep them here, and I’d be far from surprised to see caps put in place for Chinese student visas within the next five years.

tho234234324 3y ago

On the flip side; what exactly does US society provide to Chinese (and to a lesser extent, Indians) ? They're constantly demonized by the media. They're treated as essentially 'devil-worshipping' orientals ('Communism' for China; 'Hinduism' for Indians). They have to deal with 60s-era racially-motivated immigration laws that limit the same number of Green-Cards for Norway/Sweden (and other tiny 5-million large countries) as that for each of China/India. On some level the Americans (and Westerners) can't come to terms with their own glaring hypocrisy. They are intense ethno-nationalists but will pretend to be anything but, and claim their own culture is universal and anyone who doesn't subscribe to it is the devil's pawn. (To wit, the LGBTQ flag is now a more obvious fixture in front of US embassies). Asians are too, but they aren't obsessed with it, nor do they over do it due to not having a 'religion' hang over them culturally (other than ofc. when they're 'saved' by some occidental import; Buddhism etc. are not 'religions'). Indians atleast have to contend with essentially a vestigial-colonial state that is essentially a kleptocracy which just happens to be run by people who're 'liked' by the 'global elite' because they're, very much like zealous RW Xtian nuts, destroying India's historical 'pagan' culture and language (India's constitution for instance denies Hindus religious rights, unlike that for Xtians/Muslims; and imposes English on a large population that barely understands it). China (like imperial Japan) too was 'liked' when they were destroying their own culture/traditions for 'secular Xtianity'. Not anymore I guess.

baby 3y ago
I half agree. What pisses me off though is that a lot of Chinese people who immigrate to the US still can’t say anything bad about their own country and just shove any criticism under the idea that western media just hates China. I’d pick US nationalism over Chinese nationalism.
- senttoschool 3y ago
  It's not that they can't say anything bad about China. It's just that everything said about China is negative in the US. When was the last time you read something positive about China in the mainstream media? 1.4 billion people and nothing good happens there according to western media. That's just propaganda.

ChumpGPT 3y ago

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigration-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigrati... >The United States is home to the highest number of immigrants in the world. An estimated 50.6 million people in the United States—a bit more than 15% of the total population of 331.4 million—were born in a foreign country. The number of immigrants in the U.S. has increased by at least 400% since 1965. By the way, the USA takes more immigrants every year than any other country in the world. I myself went through the process and was treated with complete respect and it wasn't easy but well worth it to become an American and be welcomed into the Land of Milk and Honey.

tomohelix 3y ago
The US was a lot of things. It still is on some fronts, but others have seen decline. Your experience was certainly true. It is why so many are trying to come here. But things have changed and the experience is not what it used to be. If you think it was difficult before, think about how it has to be now for people to choose to go back instead of persevering. The trend is clear. Things changed. The US can either fix it and remain competitive by hoarding talents. Or it will continue to deteriorate. There are always warning signs. Immigration laws has been called antiquated and desperately in need of reform for a long time. Your sentiment of "it was good in my time" is how hegemons like Britain fell.
Baloo 3y ago
Maybe they have the highest number of immigrants, but as a percentage of the population other nations are higher and USA is very far down. Canada, Norway, Sweden are all higher... USA isn't even in the top 50 when looking at total % of the population.
- refurb 3y ago
  Those countries aren't even in the top 10 of the highest percentage of immigrants. Countries like Monaco, Bahrain, Qatar, Hong Kong are in the >40% while Canada, Norway, Sweden are all < 20%. The US is 15%. All about the same. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigration-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigrati...

tracerbulletx 3y ago

How would a US citizen be treated trying to immigrate to China?

balderdash 3y ago
well they would no longer be allowed to be a US citizen...

balderdash 3y ago

how is it "a demeaning and torturous process", above and beyond dealing with any faceless bureaucracy (i.e. dealing with the DMV, IRS, or even airline lost baggage departments, or your local cable company)? "you get treated like second class human beings and are forced to fight and prove you deserve something others were simply born with." isn't this effectively the situation with immigrating to any desirable country (and even some undesirable ones)?

tomohelix 3y ago
The irony is in how the US claims to be all about equality and opportunity. But then it treats one of the most productive classes of its residents as second class who do not deserve some basic legal protections. Still, to answer your question, the difference is in the number of dealings an immigrant has to go through and the consequences if any of these goes badly. If you mess up your DMV meeting every 5 years, no big deal. You failed to update your address in your annual license renewal as an immigrant? That is a potential black mark that can get your green card denied and your life ruined. Maybe it is the case for every country to treat immigrants like that. But when the US is built by immigrants, it should have an incentive to do better than that. Otherwise, why would people immigrate here instead of all the other "desirable" countries, or maybe just come back home? In such situations, sure, the US hasn't done wrong. It simply had done worse than it used to. And that can be a subjective sign of decline depending on how you look at it.
dotnet00 3y ago
Well, for starters, there are many points of the process where your entire future is down to the mood of the immigration officer at the airport. Making it so that the safest way to not have to potentially uproot your entire life in hours is to just keep your head down and be a good little indentured servant until you get lucky in a lottery. Happened to travel internationally, either to see family for a week or for a conference in the 3 years between finishing your education and getting a chance at an H1B? Maybe they'll let you back in, maybe they won't, no one can say. Happened to study and work here for over a decade, slaved away for an employer to convince them to sponsor your residency?, Employer screws up your green card application after pushing it off till the H1B limit, you get screwed and have to leave with zero recourse. It's no wonder illegal immigration is such a big issue here, especially with sanctuary cities, you come and stay illegally and governments will bend over backwards to help you stay, you come here, get an advanced education and work hard to remain in legal status for a significant chunk of your life, supporting yourself financially and giving back to the country and you get kicked out for something that wasn't even your fault. In comparison DMVs and even the IRS aren't renowned for being in the habit of completely wrecking someone's life's plans over the mood of one random person. There are pretty blatantly wrong things people have to do (and keep doing) for the DMV or IRS to have a similar impact on their lives.

gsatic 3y ago

Also Chinese food is just way better.

resonious 3y ago

I have a colleague from China who originally tried to move to the US. He became so disillusioned by the process that he gave up and tried Japan instead, as it provides a similar level of freedom. Within 3 years of just working a regular software job and studying the language, he got permanent residency. A lawyer did all of the heavy lifting. Just an anecdote, but maybe an example of the US losing talent to its insane immigration system.

matheusmoreira 3y ago
Japan is a nation whose birthrates are so low its own government speaks of extinction of the japanese people. They aren't exactly in a position to refuse immigrants. The US won't be either if current trends continue.

tjs8rj 3y ago

The immigration system has a duty to the citizens, not to the immigrants - except as far as it preserves human rights and serves the citizens. You’re not entitled to citizenship. We didn’t get it by birth alone, we got it because our lineage dedicated their life to building this country into what it is and passed it on to their children. That you have this entitlement towards US citizenship means you don’t deserve it at all.

jasmer 3y ago
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tomohelix 3y ago
>We didn’t get it by birth alone That is false. Check the 14th amendment on jus soli. Your own constitution, written by the founders of your country disagrees with you. By standards of the US citizenship test. You do not qualify for citizenship. See how arbitrary it is? Also statistically, per person, immigrants contribute to the US more than its own citizens. Your attempt of using "lineage" is so ridiculous I don't know what to say. If you truly believe that, then we should have kings and queens again because their "lineages" sure are prestigious and contribute a lot to the country. But of course, the US founders were vehemently against it, as written in the constitution and the declaration of independence. So I guess you again proved you failed the citizenship test.
- tjs8rj 3y ago
  I know you receive citizenship with birth on US soil, but that wasn’t implemented because the state has some obligation to someone simply due to the dirt above which they were born. The reason that law was implemented was to recognize the states duty to the offspring of the people of the nation. Do you really think the framers of the 14th amendment would agree with loopholes like “anchor babies”? Of course not, because while they were born here, the intent behind the 14th was to grant immediate citizenship to the offspring of the people who built the country. This is what I mean. Anchor babies were an unforeseen flaw. It’s not arbitrary. You think it’s arbitrary because you have the impression that the US is just some economic zone with a basket of benefits. ITS NOT. We’re a nation of people. The nation and its people have no obligation to you or any other non member of the people. YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO IT. Why do you think you deserve citizenship? You think so because it would benefit you, not thinking for a second whether you’d benefit the nation or it’s people. Given that you view the country this way, you don’t deserve it either. We’re not a basket of benefits to be plundered by the whole world. The duty of the nation is to its people and them alone. Immigrants come only if they are a benefit to the people and the people want them. The state acts on behalf of the people in this mission.

jasmer 3y ago

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goodbyesf 3y ago

> and the US is happy to take that money US is or our colleges are? > Maybe China is playing it dirty and forces these scientists to come back. Or maybe 'China provides many opportunities for its citizens to study abroad and expand their horizons' and their citizens want to help their own country in turn? > Sure, "freedom" and "human rights" are something but frankly Nobody immigrates for 'freedom' and 'human rights'? Everyone immigrates for 'better life' - money. And what freedom and human rights do the chinese lack? > You get treated like second class human beings and are forced to fight and prove you deserve something others were simply born with. Good. Why should non-citizens be treated the same as citizens? Every country should treat their citizens better than non-citizens. > There must be an incentive for these people to endure that kind of process. 'Freedom' and 'human rights'. Funny isn't it? It's sounds so stupid when you say it out loud and yet the dumb masses believe it. > And for many Chinese whose homeland in every way a direct competitor to the US, there aren't enough reasons. Good. It means china is advancing and providing opportunities for their own people. These chinese scientists should go home and help create china's harvard, mit, etc. And hopefully india, south america, africa and rest of the world follows china's example. The blueprint is there and if china is able to develop then so can the rest of the world.

zephrx1111 3y ago

Is it just simply because there were 5 folds more Chinese people study in US from a decade ago? I don’t like the word “send”. AFAIK China was not paying for their tuitions.

marfil 3y ago

This is true, but not exclusive to China and the Chinese people. I've immigrated to the US from Europe about 13 years ago and it was a very legally and financially painful process. I've since acquired a B.S.,M.S.,and a Ph.D. in a highly desirable specialization and haven't been able to find a job in the US. This country has left me poor, in debt and hopeless. My wife and I are packing our bags and moving back to Europe. I don't see any opportunity for myself or my children in this declining, chaotic, money hungry country.