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But doesn’t this type of migration lead to brain drains?

If you take the best talent from the developing world and move them all to America for education and then capture their talents through migration, you deprived the developing world of the talent they need to develop and thrive, which puts the developing world even further behind!

Seems like if we want to help the developing world we need to train and equip their talented people and ensure they have the security and infrastructure to build their homelands into developed nations with established trade routes, etc.

Or we can continue to exploit developing countries by snatching their top talent. It’s not modern day slavery, but it seems to be uncomfortably close in its exploitation.

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"Brain drain" is a net benefit to the source country. Brains are worthless on their own without higher education and the know-how that's gained from being an expat to a developed country. It's very much a win-win arrangement.

It is a win for the home country only if the expat comes back, then they get access to an educated individual that would have been hard to train internally.

Many expats do come back to their home country, and pretty much all expats have at least some meaningful links and interactions with it.

Many??? I doubt this is true. I am African, and throughout my college years, I established a very extensive network of African scholars in the US. I can safely say that more than 95% of them stayed in the US. The number for Africans is obviously higher, but even in my own college network, most of the international students stay in the US. The few who go back are either because they are rich or already have something lined up for them, or they did not get a job/visa to stay. Otherwise, for the overwhelming majority, the plan is to stay and most of them end up doing so.

Many African countries have truly dismal institutional arrangements that make return migration extremely unattractive. But when countries strive to improve, they stand to gain huge advantages from people coming back with good education and skills they acquired in a developed country.

What does it mean for a country to "strive to improve"? Do you expect a country to flourish when you siphon off the educated?

People won't return until the country improves, and the country won't "strive to improve" until the educated return.

> Do you expect a country to flourish when you siphon off the educated?

Yes. Research shows that when more people are educated abroad (i.e. 'siphoned off') this tends to improve attitudes towards democracy and liberal values in the source country. This directly addresses one of the main factors explaining expats' attitudes towards coming back.

Can you cite a source here?

There's a lot of research about this and I'm not going to link it all here, you can check wiki. One example is doi:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2015.12.001 "Emigration and democracy":

"Migration is an important yet neglected determinant of institutions. This paper documents the channels through which emigration affects home country institutions and considers dynamic-panel regressions for a large sample of developing countries. The authors find that emigration and human capital both increase democracy and economic freedom. ...Simulations show an impact of skilled emigration that is generally positive, significant for a few countries and for many countries once incentive effects of emigration on human capital formation are accounted for."

Then that is not a brain drain, in many places (like my own country) very few people come back.

In that case whether justified of not, whether it should be stopped or not it is not a "win" for the home country people are leaving.

I am not arguing for or against, I am arguing that the pointed problem is not fabricated.

Let’s say you are a doctor in the developing world and you help your community.

You move to America and work there.

How does the source community gain from the loss of their doctor?

Your suggestion implies that the source country owns the brains, not the individuals involved.

Should people really have to swim upstream all their lives in societies they don’t want to be in?

As an emigrant, and the owner of a brain, I find that idea abhorrent.

No ownership, but responsibly to the community.

I see many famous athletes who go to their hometown in America and invest in under developed neighborhoods they grew up in, and see that as a model for investing in communities on a global level.

It seems better than taking the best talent and allowing the cycle of poverty to continue.

Why is extracting talented humans from the developing world good for the developing world?

> I see many famous athletes who go to their hometown in America and invest in under developed neighborhoods they grew up in, and see that as a model for investing in communities on a global level.

But those athletes became famous and successful precisely because they were allowed to leave and pursue their dreams - had they been stuck in their hometowns they wouldn't have achieved anything of the same caliber. If it's okay to leave your hometown, why isn't it okay to leave your home country?

The notion that people are beholden to the country they're born in is absolutely braindead. You're basically saying that a person born in a gutter should stay in that gutter because the gutter might benefit from it.

Precisely.

And there’s another dimension: what if the source country didn’t welcome the emigré? Should someone be forced to contribute to a society if they are not wanted?

I was surplus to requirements in my birth country so I left. Others I know left their birth nations for the new world because they are gay or atheist or a minority and didn’t feel welcome.

Talented or not, these people should be able to apply to move where they want to go.

This is ridiculous hyperbole. Most of the talent coming to the US are able to actually leverage their talent and live much more comfortable fulfilling lives here.

Why would you want to deny those individuals their right to wealth and a more comfortable life?

I don’t want to deny people anything, I want to distribute the talent and opportunity for success to bring up the standard of living globally instead of focusing all the success, opportunity and wealth in developed countries.

Is it fair to the less talented people of a developing nation that America takes the best doctors and teachers? Doesn’t that harm the development of that nation?

How much of your own capital do you invest in developing countries?

> I want to distribute the talent and opportunity for success to bring up the standard of living globally instead of focusing all the success, opportunity and wealth in developed countries

This is assuming that talent in developing countries will be able to leverage their talent in those countries. These individuals are more than capable of sending back capital that they earn in the US if they choose to do so. Also, global standards of living continue to improve due to the advancements made in developed countries.

>Is it fair to the less talented people of a developing nation that America takes the best doctors and teachers?

The US isn't taking anything, individuals are moving to where they will be most productive.

>Doesn’t that harm the development of that nation?

Possibly? Do the developing countries that these people are coming from appreciate their talent?

There are security, infrastructure and supply chain issues, absolutely, but i think it’s solvable.

Pick a single country and a few cities, and run a pilot project.

Take a bunch of people and train them in the USA, and send them home with a security force, and construct the basic infrastructure required and slowly expand the city with clean water, food, businesses.

But by bit build a better world.

Or, continue to capture the best and brightest, and ignoring the brain draining of the developing world and hope that they figure it out on their own.

>Take a bunch of people and train them in the USA, and send them home with a security force, and construct the basic infrastructure required and slowly expand the city with clean water, food, businesses.

I would love to see this kind of interventionism but after Iraq this isn't politically feasible. Also I don't think most developing countries would support this.

>Or, continue to capture the best and brightest, and ignoring the brain draining of the developing world and hope that they figure it out on their own.

Developing countries get to leverage advances made in developed countries which also them to develop much more quickly.

> Also I don't think most developing countries would support this.

Honduras is betting big on it. Called a ZEDE ('Zona de Empleo y Desarrollo Económico'). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_for_Employment_and_Econom...

Sort of tangential to the discussion, but what a fascinating conceit: that any individual (on earth) has a right to wealth and comfort, such that the people of the United States should be obliged to expedite the fulfillment of that right, by allowing that individual to settle there.

High talented individuals moving to the US is a win-win for them and the US. They significantly help to strengthen the country and ensure it keeps its dominant position

In some individual cases, that is certainly true; so that's more of a non sequitur.

I'm trying to divine the origins of this "right" that highly talented individuals have, to move where they whilst to best avail themselves of opportunities, and what sort of strength and dominance they can contribute to the place they move to...that, if these qualities do emerge from highly talented individuals, why did they do them no good in the place they're moving _from_?

I don't know why you keep using the word "right". It's a beneficial situation for the individual and the US.

Because institutions and environments matter. Einstein wouldnt have been able to contribute nearly as much to humanity 5000 years ago as he could 80 years ago.

I keep using the word "right", because you said:

Why would you want to deny those individuals their right to wealth and a more comfortable life?

So now, it is not a right, but merely a beneficial arrangement so obvious as to be axiomatic?

Yes, institutions and environments matter...so much so, that one should be very, very careful about how they might be changed or altered, and how the benefits are calculated, and by whom...

Ah my mistake. By "right to wealth/comfort" I meant their right to pursue those things.

High talent immigrants are objectively beneficial to the US and to those individuals.

Yep. There’s a dangerous line of thinking when people start arguing for positive rights.

Not necessary. I know folks who came here studied and worked (got tired of the green card waiting game), went back home and started companies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-ring_theory_of_economic_deve...

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