[sprashanth]

In the last 4 months, I've already seen more than 5 friends in my circle who've left the US for good. They do not plan on returning to the US until the pathway to a green card is sorted out. They work at companies like Microsoft, FAANG, etc. Over the next year, another 10-15% of my friend circle is moving out of the US - most of them cite the green card issue as the primary cause of returning back.

They've already worked at good tech companies here, most of which have offices around the world. Their choices directly cause the shift of their jobs from US to outside. Couple this with the fact that many of my juniors at the best universities in India (harder to get into than Stan/MIT here) now no longer consider moving to the US because of these cases, there is already an effect of really good talent not arriving here. The effect is not obvious in a year or two, but surely over time you will notice the secondary effects: a lot of engineers coming from India/China would not be the countries'best - the best do not want to put up with this, more employees leaving earlier/not settling, the expansion of India/China offices for these tech companies, or China/India companies doing better than the US counterparts (in cases where this is already happening, a lot of the HN crowd blames Chinese protectionism rather than acknowledging the talent that already exists in those countries).