Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says

I think there’s plenty of interesting debates to be had about immigration policy and its effects on the labor market, but one thing worth noting here is that the primary problem that damn near every other country on earth has isn’t immigration, it’s brain drain.

A core strategic strength of the US over the last century has been that everyone with any talent wants to come here to work, and by and large we’ve let them do so. You can argue how well that’s worked out for us - having worked with a great many extremely talented H1bs in an industry largely built by immigrants, I’d consider it pretty positive - but it damn sure hasn’t worked out well for the countries those talented folks came from.

As always, so much zero-sum thinking in all these discussions.

Often, the person may not have been as productive, happy, or well compensated in their own country.

Also, over time, some of those people make money in the US and take that, their knowledge and skills and go back home to share there. Everyone is better off.

I was discussing this elsewhere, and dug up something I wrote 11 years ago, and I think I'm still pretty happy with it:

https://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-job...

> Also, over time, some of those people make money in the US and take that, their knowledge and skills and go back home to share there. Everyone is better off.

How are Americans better off in this scenario?

They generated economic activity while they were in the US, no? That seems to be a net positive. You'd otherwise have to be able to argue that, if you replaced them with a US citizen during the time they were here, the greater economic activity would have been generated.