Posted on 08/17/2003 12:38:55 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
DENVER -- Yusuf Hussain, after spending seven years in Colorado, packed up his three-bedroom house in Littleton last week in search of a better life. He says he will find it in Pakistan.
The 39-year-old executive came here from Pakistan just as the U.S. tech economy was taking off in 1996. Today, he is being lured back by what he can't find here: Jobs, wealth and economic activity.
Many foreign nationals no longer view America as the land of opportunity. Economists, businesspeople and other experts say growing numbers of immigrants are moving back to their home countries of Pakistan, India, China, Singapore and Vietnam -- countries with job and economic growth sometimes double or triple that of the United States.
The U.S. government hasn't kept totals on emigration for several decades. But economists and immigrants say the anecdotal evidence of the trend is real.
"I get calls from friends left and right saying they are packing up and going back to China," said Hai Yan Zhang, a Denver-based Chinese business consultant who travels to China five times a year.
"I go to China and see people's eyes sparkling," Zhang said. "It's full of life and vitality there. In contrast to the U.S., where we're reaching a plateau, perhaps going down."
Economists say the exodus could hurt the U.S. economy because America is losing some of the world's smartest and most entrepreneurial people.
And it most likely will feed a controversial trend by U.S. companies to create jobs or move existing jobs offshore in search of cheaper and faster software development, manufacturing or customer service.
"Those people will have the talent to do the work in their home country, and they have the relationships with the companies they used to deal with," said Rich Wobbekind, an economist with the University of Colorado. "It's going to be easier for them to set up facilities in other countries."
Indeed, that's what lured Hussain to return to Pakistan.
Hussain, chief executive of Denver software firm Cressoft, plans to open a facility in Pakistan to provide faster, less expensive software development for U.S. companies.
"Offshore in my mind is the most high-growth prospect for the foreseeable future," Hussain said.
Today he sees climbing real estate values, an improving stock market and software contracts in Pakistan.
"I think you're seeing a bit of a movement," he said.
Almost all countries in Southeast Asia have higher economic growth rates than the United States. Much of that activity is fueled by U.S. companies outsourcing their manufacturing, software development and customer service needs.
China is experiencing the fastest economic growth of any country, expanding at 8 percent a year, according to statistics compiled by the Central Intelligence Agency. The country has become a key manufacturing center for companies across the globe, making everything from washing machines and clocks to chemical fertilizers and sugar.
India ranks No. 2, growing 4.3 percent last year. With its highly educated, English-speaking work force, India has become a prime spot for affordable customer-support call centers, software development houses and, more recently, technical support centers.
"I know a lot of Indians who are going back to India," said Zafar Khan, a Denver attorney and accountant who speaks six languages and has lived in five countries. "At the moment, there is a downturn. Companies are closing, and there's not a lot of work."
Khan said he is considering moving back to his native Pakistan to join Hussain's software venture.
"I'm toying with it," he said. "I'm an international guy. I can move anywhere there is opportunity."
Multiple forces may pull immigrants back home, said Bahman Paul Ebrahimi, a global business professor at Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver.
Some people arrived here a few years ago to meet demand from companies that desperately needed talented computer scientists to keep up with the booming economy. Today, their work visas have expired, and they're forced to go home because they can't find an employer to sponsor them, he said.
Ebrahimi said he also knows of foreign students who came for school but now are leaving because they couldn't find work after graduating.
Ebrahimi, who moved here from Iran decades ago, said he also perceives an anti-immigrant feeling here and a deep resentment from jobless Americans.
"No matter how long you live here, people will consider you a foreigner," Ebrahimi said. "There's a social stigma and backlash in this country. Sometimes there's subtle, even overt, hostility."
Still others, such as Hussain, crave being close to family and cultural roots.
"It's very work-oriented here," Hussain said. In Pakistan, he said, people focus more on family and have more of a sense of spirituality rather than materialism."
Yet there's a trade-off, said Zhang, the Chinese consultant. She said many people who spent enough time in America suffer from what she calls "re-entry shock" when returning home.
In China, houses typically are cramped and corporations are bureaucratic, offering little room for advancement or personal initiative, Zhang said.
And in India, simple things such as getting phone service, banking or receiving health care may take weeks.
As more immigrants leave, fewer come to the United States on temporary work visas these days.
Outside of retail pharmacies and health care employers, job-slashing corporations no longer salivate over foreign nationals as they did a few years ago to fill vacant tech jobs.
Plus, the government has tightened restrictions on immigration because of homeland security concerns, said Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship & Immigration.
Requests to receive H-1B temporary work visas fell 41 percent from October 2001 to June 2002, according to Economy.com. And the number of those visas actually doled out dropped 53 percent to 60,500 over the same period.
"I think it's a loss for the long run," said Wobbekind, the economist. "Over the centuries, that's what made our country great, having a melting pot of different cultures and talents. We're accidentally exporting some smart people who could easily compete with us."
Many of these immigrants probably had an outdated image of the USA, learned English, and would have fit in with the America of 20 years ago where hard work would get you ahead and all that. Asians aren't the favored group with Affirmative Action either so they would find themselves not meeting any of the right racist qualifications to get good jobs.
That's a fine attitude. There are things we have yet to discover and develop. That's our strength. At least it was. Stop chruning out anti-American dummies primed to vote the LIBERAL ticket.
I'm with you, I wish the people who return to their native homeland well. The thing is though, that I think of the USofA as my native land even though I was born elsewhere.
I don't have it in me to love a country which is merely that, but the US is an ideal which became a Country, and that has made all the difference. America provided succor and sustenance to my family when we were in desparate need. Did my father have a great job? NO! Did we struggle? Very Much! Would Italy have been able to offer the expanse of opportunity and experience to my brother and I? No way, no how!
Look at our flag, it is the most beautiful of all, and that's because it is literature made into cloth. There is no other flag on the face of the globe that can make the same claim. I have affection for Italy, but I love America because she has no equal.
I have a melting pot for silver and brass. Always around the perimeter and sometimes on top there is scum. To have a good mix, the scum needs to be eliminated. If not the castings will be faulty.
'Almost' inevitable.....Heads On Pikes!
And the US education system concentrates their best educational opportunities on the mentally retarded, intellectually challenged, inner city underachievers, anyone who is not up to the challenge.
Yes less demand for expensive govt. services and yes less demand for private sector services. Less demand in the private sector means overcapacity, layoffs, inability to service debt burdens, bankrupcies, deflation in real estate.
You would think that less deman for govt. services would be good if they would reduce their capacity and give you a tax cut. Usually they keep the money for themselves.
No, he said if you pass NAFTA in 1993, you will hear that great sucking sound from Mexico, and kids, he was wrong.
Exactly. I remember reading a decade or so ago about all the Russian immigrants who were returning home after a stay in the US. This is nothing new.
Good thought. I have several immigrant relatives. The republican ones are alarmed that we are not universally the accalimed garden spot of the world any more and are targeted by Islamic terrorists for extinction. But being rational people and christians, they realize that reality bites no matter where you go and here is better than anywhere else, in the long run. ( They are Indians by way of England)
My liberal immigrant relatives (armenians by way of lebanon) belittle all things american, work for the government - Army as civillians, prefer anything french to american culture, educated their children in the most exclusive of Wash D.C. private schools (Holton Arms etc) and raised children to become the founder of, among other things, the Taco Bell boycott tour.
My impression of immigrants is this - if they "get it"----- "It" is the Judaeo-Christian western culture that has produced the most stable and family friendly culture in human civilization. If they feel alienated from all things christian then they will forever be basket cases living on US soil.
Moral of the story - raise your children in a christian environment and they won't feel like strangers in a strange land. There's nothing weirder than going to Sam's club in August on a 100+ degree day in Kansas City, Missouri and seeing american women dressed up in veils and chadors and acting islamic in order to assimilate themselves into an arab culture. It's a freak show.
No bishop, no king.
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