Makes U.S. unattractive to world’s best and brightest

have departments devoted to assisting foreign scholars in complying with U.S. immigration law.

Immigrants are the lifeblood of many U.S. hospitals and research universities, and making life more difficult for them will be profoundly damaging to American medical research and health care, not to mention industries including energy, pharmaceuticals, and high-tech (agriculture, hospitality and construction go without saying). In major medical centers, immigrants are doing everything from emptying bedpans and changing IVs, to leading multimillion-dollar National Institutes of Healthfunded grant projects.

In addition to its several dozen major research universities, the U.S. has many government agencies and private companies engaged in high-level scientific research. This is a draw for the world’s best and brightest, and some researchers, after completing a Ph.D., medical residency, post-doctoral appointment or visiting professorship in the U.S., seek to remain here.

The scholars and doctors whose applications I prepare at the law firm I work for have impressive resumes. If they didn’t, it wouldn’t be possible to qualify them under the “extraordinary ability” or “outstanding researcher” categories with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

These people don’t need to be here; they are a highly educated and mobile group of professionals who will probably land on their feet, if not in their homeland, then in a third country. Canada, Australia, Germany and others are plenty happy to snap up the world’s scientific elite.

The Trump administration’s policies are cruel to the most vulnerable immigrants: refugees, economic migrants, and citizens of the banned seven Muslim-majority nations, but they will also have a chilling effect on immigration regardless of provenance. The actions of the Trump administration thus far have been punitive, arbitrary, uninformed and mostly illegal. Who knows where it will end, or what countries or classifications of people will be added to those deemed unacceptable? Even those from places nowhere near the countries on the Trump hit list are certain to think twice about coming here, particularly scientists and doctors who have more options than most.

Scientists and medical professionals are coming to U.S. institutions for a reason: to further their education, to engage in scientific research, or to pursue a medical or academic career. They seek opportunity, and yet, the administration is undermining education, attacking science, and degrading medical care. All of this — in addition to antiimmigration statements and ill-conceived executive