Strengthening America's Competitiveness and Security
by Welcoming More Immigrants with STEM Skills

Experts warn that the U.S. lacks the trained workforce needed to maintain leadership in industries of the future

This year, seventy former national security officials who have served under Republican and Democratic Administrations called on Congressional leadership to create new pathways for more STEM experts to come to the United States. Their letter closes with an ominous warning: “China is the most significant technological and geopolitical competitor our country has faced in recent times. With the world’s best STEM talent on our side, it will be very hard for the United States to lose. Without it, it will be very hard for us to win.”

Consumer applications like ChatGPT have highlighted to the public the vast and varied potential of cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence (AI). But these emerging capabilities are just a small preview of how advanced technologies will continue to transform our world, and experts and elected officials are rightly raising alarms about the U.S.’ ability to stay ahead of its competitors in designing, producing, and deploying these technologies.

Top experts from many of the “industries of the future” (like quantum information technology, artificial intelligence, climate technology, and biotechnology) warn that the United States’ ability to lead in these fields is being hindered by a diminished skilled workforce and barriers to recruiting top-tier talent from around the world.

These workforce challenges are imperiling U.S. strategies to establish tech dominance, like the effort to bring advanced manufacturing of semiconductors back to the U.S. Onshoring manufacturing would reduce the U.S.’ reliance on economic competitors (particularly China) that leaves supply chains and our national security vulnerable to failure and attack.

The onshoring effort has gotten a boost from new federal funding for expanding manufacturing capacity in the U.S., like the $52.7 billion provided by the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act signed into law in 2023, along with major investments from private businesses to build factories and ramp up production.

However, this significant investment of time and resources will go to waste if there are not enough skilled workers to design, build, and operate the manufacturing plants and drive other critical sectors of the market that directly or indirectly support these industries. A precipitous collapse in legal immigration levels in recent years has exacerbated persistent labor shortages across the economy (along with also being a major contributor to inflationary pressures that have been driving up retail prices for consumers), and particularly for industries that rely on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) expertise.

The U.S. is falling behind in the global competition for STEM talent

STEM industries rely on workers with high levels of education and specialized skills. Many countries are competing aggressively to recruit these same skilled workers, taking advantage of the U.S.’ failure to keep up.

For example, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been investing heavily in educating and retaining STEM experts to design, build, and deploy cutting-edge technologies, including advanced semiconductors and artificial intelligence. The CCP has made huge gains in educating more STEM experts, while also using strategies like the Thousand Talents Program to recruit STEM experts abroad—including those educated and working in the U.S. The CCP is also working to increase return rates for Chinese-born students who study abroad. (China is currently the top country of origin for international students studying in the U.S., particularly in advanced STEM fields.)

It’s not just China: from Canada to the European Union to Japan and Taiwan, other countries are quickly modernizing and expanding their immigration systems to recruit hundreds of thousands of international students and highly skilled workers. They are capitalizing on declines in international student enrollment rates in recent years, where limited immigration avenues available to students after graduation have dampened interest in the U.S. as a place to study and work. While enrollment levels rebounded in the 2023-2024 school year, experts worry that the U.S.’ ability to attract and retain talented individuals is far from guaranteed.

A recent FWD.us study found that most future STEM students do not see themselves staying in the U.S. long-term after graduation. Focusing specifically on students considering advanced STEM degree programs at U.S. colleges and universities, we found a notable increase in the share of prospective students who were anticipating short-term stays in the U.S. after graduation (three years or fewer) compared to a couple years prior, where a plurality were anticipating long-term (four years or more) stays. We believe this shift is driven in part by prospective international students coming to better understand the lack of long-term pathways after graduation.

As former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, whose agency was responsible for implementing the CHIPS Act, warned: “if we don’t invest in America's manufacturing workforce, it doesn’t matter how much we spend. We will not succeed.” Policy experts support this view, cautioning that the U.S. cannot bring technology manufacturing home without also re-establishing itself as the top talent destination and retaining a significantly higher number of STEM workers.

The answer is clear—allow more immigrants with STEM skills to come to the U.S.

There is one clear step to help solve the talent shortages that endanger American competitiveness: pass legislation to allow more immigrants with STEM skills to come to the U.S.

Hundreds of thousands of skilled STEM professionals around the world are ready to fill these open jobs, many of them educated at American colleges and universities. The lack of adequate available immigration pathways to stay and work in the U.S. is by far the most significant obstacle standing in their way – but this is a solvable problem that Congress and the administration can fix.

Congress should establish a direct pathway for foreign-born professionals with advanced STEM degrees to apply for green cards and join the U.S. workforce, as was originally proposed in the CHIPS Act. Congress should also establish a postgraduate immigration pathway for international students at U.S. colleges and universities to stay and work in the U.S. after they complete their studies.

FWD.us research shows that 100,000 international student graduates each year would stay and work permanently in the U.S. if a pathway existed; they would add up to $233 billion to the U.S. economy this decade and reduce STEM-related talent shortages by about a quarter.

For the semiconductor sector specifically, additional FWD.us analysis finds that 60% of current advanced degree graduates from U.S. universities in relevant engineering and computer science fields to the semiconductor-related industry are international graduates. We estimated that 5,000 international students were expected to graduate with semiconductor-related advanced degrees in 2024, and nearly 4,000 of those students would like to remain in the U.S. for some time after graduation.

In the artificial intelligence sector, we found similarly promising results: some 25,000 international students expected to graduate with AI-related advanced degrees, including computer science and computer engineering, and likely nearly 19,000 of those students hoping to remain in the U.S.

The U.S. STEM workforce has always relied on the contributions of immigrants.¹ This is partly because there have not been enough U.S.-born graduates in these fields to fill all the open roles. But it’s also a competitive advantage for the U.S. to attract the most talented experts in these fields, especially those so vital to our economic and national security—building the best team is a winning strategy.

Unfortunately, the U.S. STEM workforce has faced persistent shortages for decades. To make matters worse, international student enrollment rates have been declining in recent years, as the lack of postgraduate immigration options leaves graduates with no choice but to leave, and also dampens prospective students’ interest in the U.S. In the face of restricted immigration channels, U.S. companies are sending more work overseas and skilled workers are looking for other options.

U.S. reliance on other countries for advanced technologies is an economic and national security risk

One of the most immediate threats to U.S. national security and competitiveness is the U.S.' reliance on other countries to produce technology that powers both consumer products as well as our defense industrial base.

One example is the decades-long movement of manufacturing, particularly of semiconductors, overseas. The U.S. share of global semiconductor manufacturing has declined from 37% to 12% over the past 30 years, and a third of semiconductor manufacturing jobs have disappeared. Meanwhile, three-quarters of semiconductor manufacturing happens in China and East Asia. For the subset of advanced semiconductor manufacturing, Taiwan controls 92% of the Asian share, with South Korea controlling the other 8%.

Reducing this reliance on other countries, including some with which we compete directly, will protect the U.S. against economic risks (like the semiconductor shortage that restricted production and availability of new cars and other consumer electronics during the COVID-19 pandemic) and national security vulnerabilities (e.g., the risk of defective products, sabotage, and malware, allowing malicious actors to spy on or undermine U.S. military efforts).

The United States must act with urgency to maintain our global competitiveness and innovative edge. The CCP is investing heavily in its ability to dominate in these cutting-edge fields, with their explicit goal being to use these advanced technologies against the United States. The U.S. cannot be beholden to other countries—and especially not the CCP—for the means to defend itself.