The United States continued to stand out, in contrast. In the 1960s, it even shed its racist immigration policies and made possible browns like me to make ourselves at home here in America.
And then trump happened.
Immigration is now targeted from many directions. Because it is pretty much only non-whites who want to move to America--thanks to the global demographic dynamics--the anti-immigration nationalism is ethnic-cleansing through federal policy!
We are now setting ourselves up for immense losses. Highly qualified, talented, and capable people are being denied work visas. Like in this case:
After earning law degrees in China and at Oxford, after having worked in Hong Kong as a lawyer at a top international firm, after coming to United States three years ago for an M.B.A. and graduating and joining a start-up, I was given just 60 days to leave the country. I have 17 days left.
Law degrees, including from Oxford. MBA from Stanford. Anything else?
My work involves artificial intelligence and big data, and my letters of support came from an authority in my industry and veteran start-up investor, and a Nobel Prize winner. But it wasn’t enough to convince the government that my job requires advanced skills.
What do Nobel Prize winners know anyway! It is not like many American Nobel laureates are from other countries, right?
So, any final thoughts from the Hong Kong visitor who has been given her exit papers?
So, any final thoughts from the Hong Kong visitor who has been given her exit papers?
America is losing many very skilled workers because of its anti-immigrant sentiment, and while this is a disappointing blow to me and my classmates, it will also be a blow to the United States’ competitiveness in the global economy. Tech giants such as Google and Tesla were founded by immigrants.
I can’t make sense of why an administration that claims to want this country to be strong would be so eager to get rid of us. We are losing our dreams, and America is losing the value we bring.
As I make plans to go back to China, I find myself wondering: If I am not qualified to stay in the United States, then who is?
Who is?
2 comments:
Yeah, I read Frida Yu's piece in the NYT.
Well, if you don't want brown and yellow skinned people (or increasingly like what happened in the UK, even white skinned people), good luck to you. We'll go elsewhere, or better still stay in our own countries and outcompete you !!
I remember a lecture I once did in a MBA school in Guangzhou. At the end , I asked how many were planning to go to the US to build their careers there. To my surprise, not one hand went up. I was stumped. If I had asked that question in a class in India , every hand would have gone up. I said so and I exclaimed that the class had really surprised me. One guy stood up and said - Why would we want to go to the US ? The best jobs are all in China !!
This was seven years ago.
I simply cannot even imagine why the GOP has become so anti-world, and anti-immigrants!!!
Not only are the browns not keen on coming to the US to work, soon they will even stop coming here to study. The GOP wants to make even higher education more difficult for foreigners; the tax bill under work wants to "tax graduate students for the value of tuition waivers they receive." When I came here as a grad student, I got a tuition waiver, and only my stipend was subject to tax. How insane this political party has become!!!
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