The Foundry
28th May 2025
Liberals might support high immigration levels, and large numbers of foreign students in particular, simply because they like the new and unfamiliar—though it’s hard not to notice that foreign students typically pay more tuition and pad the bottom line of our colleges and universities, just as immigration on the whole gives liberals opportunities to court newcomers with social services and identity politics.
Yet supposedly hardheaded realists say it’s not liberal ideology but America’s need for more scientists and entrepreneurs that’s the real reason we have to open our campuses (and borders) to the world’s talents.
After all, if we don’t do that, where else are we going to get the brains we need to compete with China?
The trouble with this tale, which is an article of faith for The Economist and the likes of Bremmer, is that it’s patently false—and largely intended to deceive.
In fact, very few companies on the Fortune 500 were started solely by immigrants; almost all were founded by Americans, occasionally in partnership with émigrés.
The source for the factoid, the American Immigration Council, has to fudge the numbers by lumping “children of immigrants” into the same category as “immigrants,” even when those children are born American citizens.
As for competing with China, how can it be that China itself is so competitive when it accepts relatively few foreign students or immigrants?