"Without educated immigrants, our high-tech economy would be unthinkable"?

Question

Do you agree or disagree with above statement?

Answer 1

Unthinkable? No. But it certainly would be harder and hence less likely.

In 2004 over 130,000 new H1B visas (visas reserved for foreign workers with special skills - frequently engineers and scientists) were issued.

Many of the students studying engineering and the hard sciences in American universities are students from abroad, many of whom stay on after getting their degrees:
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/465

A goodly number of the Nobel prize winners currently working in the U.S. were not born in the U.S.

And there are a large number of citizens and permanent residents that are working in high tech that were not born in this country.

Furthermore, children of immigrants are more likely to study science and engineering in college, so they are a disproportionate share of the engineers, etc.

One source of additional information is to look up "brain drain". Here's one site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_drain

It is also interesting to note that both conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, have agreed that the recent restrictions on immigration of skilled workers has hurt the economy in general and the high-tech sector in particular.

Answer 2

If this statement is directed to America, this is my answer:

I think that statement is a very liberal viewpoint. I think we need to give our country a little more credit. We aren't top dog because we are stupid, so we must be doing something right. And we do have some of the brightest scientists in the world working on alternative fuel sources right here in America because we have such an urgent need for this.