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Now we risk driving them away.

On April 19, CNN reported that thousands of international students across the country were informed by email that their student visas were revoked. Six days later the Trump administration decided to restore 1,400 student visas. How many students did not have their visas restored is unknown. We do know that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a list of about 300 students that he planned to expel. The National Immigration Project is challenging the visa cancellations in court.

Apart from the money that these foreign students bring in, why would we care? Because foreign students began many of the successful startups in Silicon Valley. We care because much research in science done at our universities has brought the U.S. to a revered leadership position in the world in medical science research.

With a stroke of the president’s pen this may all disappear. The best brains in the world will not want to come here anymore. Research in advanced cancer treatments, drugs to treat Alzheimer, sudden crib deaths as well as CRISPRs use in treating genetic blood disorders by cutting out a person’s faulty DNA will not continue without federal support. The U.S. inventors of CRISPR won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2020. We will be taking a giant step backward in the sciences.

In the 20th century up to World War II, Germany won about 30% of the Nobel Prizes in science. The second runner-up was Great Britain with 20% of the Nobel Prizes in science. The U.S. was way down the list with only 6% of the Nobel Prizes in science.

What turned the tide was Adolf Hitler who drove many of the best German scientists, artists and architects (some of them Jewish) to U.S. universities in the 1930s, where they were welcomed. The second German brain drain happened immediately after the war when U.S. intelligence invited physicists like Wernher von Braun (inventor of the German rockets) to the U.S. to work for the space program. The U.S. emerged from the war economically, technologically and militarily better than the rest of the world.

What really propelled the U.S. into today’s leadership position was the futuristic vision of what could come, if the U.S. government funded basic research at universities small and large around the country with a promise to keep the government’s hands off. The academic freedom and competition created by this decision attracted the best brains from around the world.

Since 2000, the U.S. has won 72 Nobel Prizes in science, of which about 30% were won by immigrants. Great Britain won 16, Germany 7, France 5, Japan 9, Israel 5. Canada, Australia.and Norway won three each.

This rosy picture will change fast if the Trump administration continues to threaten leading universities with withdrawal of funds and academic freedom. Harvard University, which so far has not backed down, was threatened with cancellation of its not-for-profit designation. $2 billion in research grants were withdrawn by the administration. Foreign students’ and researchers’ visas are being revoked. 27% of the students are from abroad. Attacking an elite university may appeal to the MAGA base, but it is still difficult to understand why President Trump wants to destroy the foremost academic institution in the US!

The Trump administration also is threatening withdrawal of funds from our other world-renowned science research facilities, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. A science publication asked its readers if they were affected by government harassment and withdrawal of funds. If so, were they considering moving their research elsewhere? 75% of the 1,600 who responded said they were considering it.

With a stroke of the president’s pen, we have lost 75 years of leadership in the sciences.

California, Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York will see the most economic impact. Maryland also will suffer, as we are home to Johns Hopkins Hospital, the site of original cancer research and treatment, and the University of Maryland Medical Center with its world-renowned Shock Trauma Center.