[fhn]

but wouldn't that give more opportunities for local students? The disadvantage is, they come, learn, leave, and take what they've learned to benefiting a competing nation, sort of training your replacement. Also, there is the security and IP theft aspect. What are the benefits?

[reverius42]

The benefits are recruiting the best and brightest students from a pool of 8b people instead of only 300m people. And some of them (most, if encouraged?) will stay in the US after that and contribute to the economy.

[mikeyouse]

I can't believe we need to rehash these tired arguments every time this is discussed. At this point, I'm convinced that some people are too jingoistic and simple-minded to believe the immense benefits that attracting the smartest people in the world has for the US.

"In 2018, there were 91 unicorn companies in the U.S., and 50 of them (or 55%) had an immigrant founder. Just eight years later, in 2026, those numbers increased to 775 U.S. unicorn companies (as of April 2026), and 455 (59%) have at least one immigrant founder"

[roughly]

They don’t leave unless you force them to.