Trump’s Student Crackdowns Threatens Billions in STEM Talent
Half of all new work authorizations came from India and China last year. That talent now looks elsewhere.
WASHINGTON — Many came here with nothing but a backpack and a head full of calculus. They showed up on campuses in California, New York, Texas, places where the laboratories glow late at night and the coding bootcamps never sleep. They’re the kids who actually like differential equations, who can make sense of an algorithm before you’ve had your morning coffee. And this country, the one that keeps shouting about being “the best,” needs them more than ever.
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The new Boundless report says it plain: 1.58 million international students last year, most of them in STEM. Ninety-five thousand got the special work permits to take their knowledge off campus and into the companies that actually keep the lights on in this economy. Amazon. Microsoft. Apple. The kids write the code, build the networks, run the systems. They don’t just keep Silicon Valley humming. They keep your damn credit card from getting stolen every time you swipe.
They put $43.8 billion into the economy last year. Supported 378,000 jobs. Not theoretical. Not on a whiteboard. Real jobs. The kid in the hoodie at Northeastern running machine-learning simulations might as well be the reason your neighbor still has a job installing broadband.
And what’s this country doing in return? Slamming the door. Telling them to take their equations and their ambitions and go try Canada, or London, or Sydney. Trump’s people are yanking visas by the thousands, taking a wrecking ball to Harvard’s ability to even enroll foreign students. You don’t need an MBA to figure out what happens next: the smartest kids in the world go somewhere else. And when they go, they don’t come back.
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This is what economists call “irreparable harm.” It’s not flashy like a bank collapse, but it’s worse. You don’t notice the damage until five, ten years down the line, when the next great startup, the next big cure, the next secure network gets built in Toronto instead of Boston. And we’re standing here wondering why America isn’t America anymore.
The brass at Boundless said it best: this country always had a “monopoly on dreamers.” We used to be the place that said bring us your ideas, your brains, your restless ambition. And they came. They came in numbers that rebuilt our economy, filled our labs, and made us the envy of the world.
Now, we’re telling them we’d rather have empty cubicles than kids with accents. That’s not just bad politics. That’s national suicide by paperwork.
Because here’s the punchline: these students aren’t stealing jobs. They’re making jobs. They’re filling the cracks in a workforce we don’t have enough Americans to fill. Ask any hiring manager in tech, healthcare, engineering. The résumés aren’t there. The pipeline is dry. Except it isn’t — it’s right here, in the hands of kids from Delhi and Shanghai, sitting in lecture halls in Boston and San Jose.
And if we let them go, if we chase them out with the Trump administration’s red tape and paranoia and bigotry, we’ll be the punchline of history. A country that once lured the world’s best minds and then got too stupid, too scared, too small to hold onto them.
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I would add the incredible value these fellow travelers in this life journey add to the health care field. I see it all the time. Aspiring doctors, nurses, X-ray techs, nurse practitioners. All working hard to get where they are. I have nothing but admiration for them all. We must do all we can to help them thrive. I was lucky. My Norwegian forefathers came at a time when (conquered) land was freely given to new immigrants. I do not forget this.