Pamela Au / Shutterstock

Misguided Immigration Policies Are Endangering America's AI Edge

Green card limits haven’t budged in decades, while new policies make it harder, costlier, and more uncertain for the world’s talent to come to the United States.

The burgeoning efforts to foster America’s development of artificial intelligence, including for military use, largely overlook how our current advantage depends on immigrants. Without immigration reforms, this country’s days as the world’s AI leader may be numbered.

Foreign-born talent fuels the U.S. AI sector at every level. Immigrants lead many of America’s top AI companies, contribute groundbreaking original research in machine learning and other emerging disciplines, and handle much of the essential, ongoing work to deploy and manage AI technologies. Immigrants comprise two-thirds of U.S. graduate students in AI-relevant fields and founded many of America's most successful companies active in AI, including Google, Tesla, and chipmaker Nvidia.

America’s world-class universities, leading companies, and high quality of life continue to attract the world’s best and brightest in AI, but an inflexible and restrictive skilled immigration system increasingly stands in their way. Many of the biggest problems have existed for years, if not decades. For example, annual limits on employment-based green cards haven’t budged since 1990, even as the national economy has doubled in size. Other problems are newer. The White House has voiced support for “merit-based” immigration, but in practice, stringent new adjudication policies have made applying for skilled immigrant status a longer, costlier, and more uncertain process. Processing delays are getting worse, prompting bipartisan concern in Congress and contributing to application backlogs in the millions.

These problems are undermining America’s AI sector. Renowned machine learning scientist Ian Goodfellow recently said visa restrictions on his foreign collaborators have been “one of the largest bottlenecks to our collective research productivity over the past few years.” Oren Etzioni, CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, warns that “restrictive immigration policies are systematically depriving [American] universities of some of the world’s top talent.” MIT president Rafael Reif described similar trends as part of a “loud signal…that the U.S. is closing the door – that we no longer seek to be a magnet for the world’s most driven and creative individuals…[W]e should expect it to have serious long-term costs for the nation and for MIT.”

Related: The Trump Administration Is Driving Away Immigrant Entrepreneurs

Related: US Reliance on China Is a ‘Hard Problem’ for AI Efforts, Commission Says

In the past, America might have been able to get by with flawed immigration laws: no matter the obstacles, AI talent would flock to the world’s unquestioned leader in science and innovation. But times are changing. Already, many of the world’s highest-valued AI startups are based outside the United States, and labs from Beijing to Bangalore are pursuing cutting-edge AI research. Meanwhile, other nations are overhauling their own immigration laws and offering generous incentives to immigrants with AI skills. In this competitive environment, status quo policy isn’t a viable option.

To maintain its advantage, the United States needs an efficient, accessible immigration system that welcomes the world’s AI talent. And that talent needs a clear and realistic path toward long-term legal status, since most who make the move want to remain in the United States. That means lifting outdated limits, overhauling restrictive regulations and agency policies, and making clear to the world – in rhetoric and in action – that America is open to talented AI workers, students, and entrepreneurs, no matter their origin. 

Achieving these reforms will also require addressing two common concerns: 

First, immigration is unlikely to crowd native-born U.S. citizens out of the AI sector. In fact, AI employers are hungry for talent and are hiring all the qualified candidates they can find. State and federal policies to support U.S.-born AI talent are welcome—but they’ll take years or decades to bear fruit, and won’t meet the market’s huge demand on their own. And leaving immediate supply and demand aside, America will always have an interest in ensuring that talented individuals come to live, work, and fuel AI innovation in the United States.

Second, the risks of theft or espionage don’t justify closing the country’s doors to foreign AI talent. To be sure, illicit technology transfer is a significant threat to the United States, and foreign visitors are sometimes to blame. But it’s unclear how well recent “extreme vetting” and screening policies can ferret out the small number of bad actors coming in from abroad. At the same time, these practices are making the immigration process slower, costlier, and less predictable, spreading fear and disillusionment among foreign AI students, workers and entrepreneurs. In turn, they make the United States less able to recruit the talent it needs to maintain leadership in artificial intelligence. That’s a serious national security threat in itself.

Immigration reform of any sort may be a tall order nowadays, but the dawn of the AI age is reason enough to redouble those efforts. Anyone interested in securing America’s advantage in artificial intelligence needs to work to open doors to talent from around the world. Otherwise, counterproductive immigration laws may make this country a second-rate AI power before long.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.