Welcome back to the technology.

Welcome back to the tech policy podcast. I'm Corbyn Barthold.

I'm pro-tech and pro-America. So naturally, I'm pro-high-skilled immigration.

Inexcusably, I've never tackled this subject on the show before.

But that changes today.

The timing could not be better, or maybe I should say worse.

The global competition for talent has never been fiercer and the stakes

have never been higher. Yet America's role as a magnet for researchers, innovators, and

entrepreneurs is suddenly in doubt. My guest today is Jeremy Newfeld, director of immigration policy at the Institute for Progress.

He'll break down where we stand and what we could be doing better.

Jeremy, welcome.

Thanks so much for having me.

So good to have you.

I'm going to start you with what on this show counts as a softball question.

You write, high-skilled immigration has long been a key driver of U.S. technological leadership.

Please sketch out why foreign tech talent is so important to the United States.

Yeah. So if you look at the foreign-born share of our population, it's only about 14%. But because our

immigration system selects for superstars from around the world, if you look at all of

the innovation that's happened in America in the last 50 years, about 36% of it is attributable to

immigrants. If you look at our Nobel prizes that the U.S. has won in sciences, about 50% of them are going to people who are born abroad and who the U.S. has won in sciences, about 50% of them are going to people who are born abroad

and who the U.S. has managed to recruit. And if you look at our top AI startups, 60% were founded

by immigrants. So immigrants seem to be disproportionately driving U.S. innovation and scientific leadership.

...