NPR reports:

Foreign-born workers account for about half of the doctoral-level scientists and engineers working in the U.S.

Many were initially hired under H-1B visas, which are granted to as many as 85,000 highly skilled specialists each year, allowing them to work in the U.S. for up to six years.

But the incoming Trump administration has signaled that it will crack down on H-1B visas, which could make it harder for universities, research institutions, and tech firms in the U.S. to find enough highly educated workers.

The result could look like what happened in the U.K. after Brexit made it harder for European scientists to work there, says Raymundo Báez-Mendoza, who runs a lab at the Leibniz Institute for Primate Research in Göttingen, Germany.

“A lot of countries in Europe benefited from Brexit, in the sense of capturing really amazing scientists that were working in Britain,” he says.

In the world of science, Báez-Mendoza says, “top talent is very mobile.”

His own resume demonstrates that.

Báez-Mendoza was born in Mexico City, got his master’s in Tübingen, Germany, his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., then worked (under an H-1B visa) as a postdoctoral researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard before returning to Germany.

Báez-Mendoza’s lab is equally international. It includes scientists from five countries, including the U.S. [Continue reading…]