“I believe you are correct. If we are going to educate these whiz’s, why not keep them?”
We are talking mainly Chinese and Indian for the actual useful degrees.
Many times the Chinese just send tech back to China illegally.
But also a huge number can be getting bogus liberal social science degrees or going to all sort of fake schools.
Going to immigrant school mills now is already now a top way for people to get here illegally.
Many times the Chinese just send tech back to China illegally.
This is such a canard. Not to say that it doesn't happen, but it's far more common with 2nd & 3rd generation employees (citizens), employees in general bought off, etc. Far, far more harm is done by simple "theft" from patents and patent applications (they are available online), and then you have the large numbers of often times experienced US and Euro engineers now working in China (some in India & elsewhere too). Many products are "co-engineered" across the oceans. I wonder how many such engineers work for Apple? You can't even call it theft when the product is jointly developed by engineers working in the US and China.
Then there are the staggering number of products designed here and made in China: the reverse design engineering or copying is usually (usually) not that tough, and the Chinese get the "hands on" production engineering as well...
As for social science degree holders, students at fake schools, etc., what useful information are they going to steal? LOL. The discussion is about keeping here top students at good Universities in productive areas of endeavor. These people are valuable assets to their employers and to the USA.
Going to immigrant school mills now is already now a top way for people to get here illegally.
Limit student visas to those attending accredited schools, and actually enforce it, and the visas' expirations. Cruz and Trump would not oppose that; I am not so sure about Rubio (slippery) or Kasich (too "nice".)