USA Immigration News

U.S. Immigrants Are Key in Innovation, Study Says

A new study shows that foreign–born U.S. nationals were involved in three out of four patents at the top research universities.

The study, carried out by the Partnership for a New American Economy, reveals that nearly all the patents are in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math) contributing to U.S. job growth. However, the world's top foreign-born innovators in STEM at United States universities have to face daunting or insurmountable immigration hurdles after graduation, the report shows. The Partnership supports legislation helping foreign-born STEM graduates and entrepreneurs to settle in the United States easily.

"Now that we know U.S. immigrants are behind more than three of every four patents from leading universities, the federal laws that send so many of them back to their home countries look even more patently wrong," Mayor Bloomberg of New York, co-founder of the Partnership, said in a statement.

According to the study, patents are a gauge for a nation's level of innovation and an important way for the United States to maintain competitiveness in STEM fields. The study shows that nine out of 10 patents at the University of Illinois in 2011 had at least one foreign-born inventor. 64 percent of these had a foreign inventor who was not yet a professor but rather a student, researcher or postdoctoral fellow, a group more likely to solve immigration problems. In addition, the recent study evaluates the potential costs of immigration policies by reviewing 1,469 patents from the 10 universities and university systems that obtained the most in 2011. The schools include the University of California, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The system currently allows foreign-born students to stay in the United States for 12 to 29 months after graduation, provided they find a job or internship in their field.

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