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Everyone agrees that we should do everything possible to improve our country’s ability to grow and prosper, yet the quest for comprehensive high-skilled immigration reform has made little progress in recent years. According to Barry Chiswick, the editor of “High-Skilled Immigration in a Global Labor Market,” high-skilled immigrants increase the growth rate of total-factor productivity which can enhance the international competitiveness of the U.S. economy and attract foreign capital. The need for scientists and engineers is greater than ever, yet two-thirds of students who earn a computer science or engineering Ph.D. from a U.S. institution are foreign students who ultimately pack up their skills and utilize them elsewhere in the world. Reforming high-skilled immigration policy in such a way that allows these students to stay and help grow our economy and expand our markets is critical to the future prosperity of the U.S. economy.

An article from Forbes agrees:

Chiswick’s empirical case is particularly compelling given current economic and political realities. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivered a rousing speech in Washington this week at an event sponsored by the National Chamber Foundation. He captured the political logic of welcoming more skilled immigrants when he said of the current economic mess, “We have to grow our way out – and to do that, we need a new approach… we really need an approach that allows business to grow, that expands our markets overseas, that spurs innovation, that increases the number of entrepreneurs who start businesses here, and that creates jobs for Americans on every rung of the economic ladder.

“Now, what if I were to tell you that there’s a way we could do all of those things at no cost to the taxpayers.  Not one penny. Well I think if told you that in the process we could raise revenue and we could use either that revenue to pay for tax cuts or to pay for essential services like national defense, I suspect all of you would say, ‘Great, what are we waiting for?’”

Read the article in its entirety here.