High-Tech Titans Strike Out on Immigration Bill - New York Times

High-Tech Titans Strike Out on Immigration Bill - New York Times:

"Bill Gates and Steven A. Ballmer of Microsoft have led a parade of high-tech executives to Capitol Hill, urging lawmakers to provide more visas for temporary foreign workers and permanent immigrants who can fill critical jobs.

"Google has reminded senators that one of its founders, Sergey Brin, came from the Soviet Union as a young boy. To stay competitive in a “knowledge-based economy,” company officials have said, Google needs to hire many more immigrants as software engineers, mathematicians and computer scientists."

Comment: I would rather have the next Sergey Brin and similarly qualified software experts working in my country than in another. They will seed prosperity with their work. If they don't come to the United States, the Internet will bring the work to them wherever they are. And indeed, there will be a virtual brain drain, as they will work on the problems of the companies and counties that pay them, wherever they are. But in the long run, they will build the ICT capacity most of the countries where they locate geographically. JAD