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“This latest strategy from the Administration to pause visas to many nations sends a signal that the US is not the place for international students to go to college and graduate school.”
– Joanne Padron Carney, Chief Government Relations Officer, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
In September 2019, over a dozen foreign students got ready to board flights for the US. It wasn’t a vacation: they were going to join graduate programs at American universities and perform research in fields like computer science and engineering. Each of them had undergone a lengthy screening process to earn their student visa. But, at the last minute, all their visas were cancelled by US officials. No reason was given. The only thing these students had in common, besides exemplary talent in the sciences, was their Iranian nationality.
For nearly 100 years, the US has been the global leader in scientific research, a position predicated upon its ability to pull in the greatest minds from across the world. Between 1901 and 2015, over 40 percent of all Nobel Prizes have gone to Americans, nearly a third of whom were foreign-born. But this scientific dominance is threatened by restrictive immigration policies.
Which future Nobel laureates, and what scientific breakthroughs, are being denied entry into the United States? How many more have been dissuaded from applying, given America’s increasingly hostile attitude towards foreigners?
Science is collaborative. It requires the exchange of different ideas, information, and viewpoints in order to bear results. These exchanges can’t be done solely online. Science is global, but also highly differentiated, with experts in seemingly obscure fields of study scattered across the planet. America’s dominance in the field of science has come, in part, from its ability to not only send its scientists abroad, but also in its ability to lure scientists to research and train at America’s top research facilities.
How Nativist US Immigration Laws Threaten the Future of Scientific Progress
Despite having some of the best research and educational facilities in the world, America’s immigration laws threaten its ability to attract and retain the world’s top scientific minds. Many foreign students are trained in the US, and, due to visa policies, are forced to return to their home country, where they end up competing against, instead of collaborating with, the country that trained them.
In theory, scientific knowledge is easily transferred across borders. And if America doesn’t take the top talent in these fields, another country will. In 2015, foreigners in the US accounted for 30 percent of the country’s college-educated science and engineering workforce. Nearly a quarter of all US patents since 2007 had at least one non-US citizen inventor.
Over 40 percent of the top cancer researchers in the country are foreign-born. America had six Nobel Prize winners in 2016—all were foreign-born. And, still, there’s more where that came from: most foreigners working towards American PhDs in science and engineering have plans to stay in the United States after graduation. America would be unwise to lose this talent, and unwiser still to give it away.
The American Society for Cell Biology’s Recommendations on Immigration
When one achieves dominance for an extended period of time, there’s a natural tendency towards complacency. But scientific innovation isn’t a field that’s forgiving to such an attitude. Accordingly, in 2017, the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) renewed a call for immigration reform by laying out four recommendations:
- Ease restrictions on foreign travel by visa holders. The collaborative and international nature of science, as a discipline, demands that researchers travel abroad. Travel restrictions for visa holders limit their opportunities for educational or professional advancement, deprive scientific conferences of key voices, restrict the ability of researchers to collaborate with other specialists, and impede meaningful scientific exchange. Easing these restrictions would nurture the scientific talent already admitted to the US and lure in more.
- Match visa durations to training time. The current visa regime is messy, with many international students arriving in the US on an F-1 visa, proceeding to postdoctoral training on a J-1 visa, and then finally completing professional training on an H1-B visa. The bureaucracy between steps is needlessly cumbersome: those who hold a J-1 visa often have to halt their studies and research in order to return to their home country (sometimes for up to two years) before applying for and receiving the necessary H1-B visa. A more seamless process would streamline America’s scientific innovation.
- Base the supply of H1-B visas on market demands. Despite the demand for H1-B visas growing by as much as 20 percent year over year, the number of such visas issued has remained at a static 65,000 per year. That means that the US is ignoring what could be an even larger influx of scientific talent. Unless a more proportional number of H1-B visas are issued, that scientific talent is going to go elsewhere. Other nations are already increasing their version of these visas, and a failure for the US to keep pace would see it fall further behind.
- Give foreign students green cards upon completion of their studies. Currently, American immigration policy makes it difficult for international students who are trained in the US to stay in the country. Furthermore, many American companies don’t offer visa support. As a result, many highly talented international students return to their home country and compete against the US, instead of for it. This is an abject loss: if the US trains and educates an international student, it should also seek to reap the benefit of their work. Offering freshly minted PhDs a green card would incentivize scientific talent to stay and work in the US.
Objectively, it’s an attractive bargain: you encourage the most brilliant people in the world to come to your country, and in return, they work for you and make discoveries on your behalf. It’s so attractive, in fact, that every country in the world is offering some form of this bargain to young scientific talent.
America’s offer isn’t necessarily the best out there, but this country’s history of dominance in the areas of scientific research has so far made up for what’s lacking. However, without reforms to its immigration policies, that dominance won’t last. Over three-quarters of US adults already believe the country should encourage the immigration of highly-skilled workers. Policymakers should take their constituents’ views into consideration.
Update 2026: Security at the Cost of Science
President Trump’s second term in office has been marked by a further tightening of immigration policy that has had a direct effect on foreign students. In May of 2025, the State Department temporarily stopped scheduling new appointments for student visa applicants while preparing stronger vetting measures; it simultaneously moved to revoke Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students entirely.
Student visa holders already in the US were threatened with deportation for supporting Palestinians during Israel’s war on Gaza. And, in June of 2025, new visa issuance—including for students—was suspended either in full or in part for 19 countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, and Venezuela.
“Current and prospective international students are now in limbo,” says Joanne Padron Carney, chief government relations officer for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). “It is critical to strike a balance between research security, national security, and attracting the brightest minds from around the world. This latest strategy from the Administration to pause visas to many nations sends a signal that the US is not the place for international students to go to college and graduate school.”
The effects of this Administration’s immigration posture are far-reaching. Science relies on predictability. Surveys by graduate schools and international education organizations consistently find that policy climate and visa reliability rank alongside funding and academic quality in destination choice. America’s abrupt policy shifts and harsher immigration policies may result in a chilling effect, with top students more inclined to look to the EU, the UK, Canada, and elsewhere to study, research, and work.
“This would change the decades-old pattern of the US being the most popular destination for international students, many of whom stay after their studies and contribute significantly to the US economy,” Carney says. “We risk other countries reaping the economic benefits as a result, which would have a damaging effect on the future strength of US competitiveness.”
Innovation is cumulative: where researchers study, train, and launch their careers strongly influences where breakthroughs occur. AI development in particular—one of the most economically impactful areas in recent history—is in a phase where human capital matters as much, if not more, than hardware. The future leaders in the world of science are the countries that invite talent in, not turn it away.
“The only prediction we can safely make for 2026 is that we will continue to witness a decline in the number of highly skilled foreign nationals choosing to study and/or work in the United States in STEM fields,” Carney says.
“The current and expected policy changes will only serve to discourage the best and brightest from coming to the US, and other nations are taking advantage of this opportunity by launching their own immigration policies to lure foreign nationals to their universities and laboratories.”
