BRAIN DRAIN

BRAIN DRAIN

Immigration is frequently an uneven transaction. When a scientist from India or a professor from Guatemala or a physician from the Philippines moves to the U.S.A, America's gain is the native land's loss. Since few American professionals head out to settle elsewhere in the world, the redistribution of talents serves only to
widen the gap between the land of plenty and the lands of poverty. Worse still, the cycle tends to perpetuate itself : as more people leave their native country for the U. S., more are likely to leave, to join relatives or cash
in on connections or simply follow examples.

Though nothing new, the brain drain has recently seemed more than ever to be taking from the poor and giving to the rich : whereas 30 years ago most well-qualified newcomers to the U. S. arrived from Europe, now they stream in from the poorer countries of the Third World. Even among unskilled workers, the U. S. tends to
attract the most enterprising - those who are adventurous enough to quit their homes and strike out for new opportunities in America.

The first to leave are outstanding students who win admission to U. S. universities and who, not surprisingly, accept challenging jobs and high salaries in America upon their graduation. Each year, for instance, some 6,000
Taiwan Chinese arrive to study in the U. S. ; no more than 20% ever return home. Many of the top achievers at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur are snapped up by the U. S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. These students are a treasure to any country, and it is a shame that their homes
sometimes don't have the resources to nurture and hold on to them.

No less costly to Third World nations is the steady migration of well-trained professionals in search of a life, any life, in America. The wage differential between the U. S. and Mexico, for example, is 15 to 1. For many others, even poverty in the U. S. is preferable to an uneasy prosperity at home : thus lawyers and doctors from Central America may be found washing cars or working as porters in Miami hotels.