1081 



ing quality as the criterion. Preference in all categories is given to 

 professionals and skilled craftsmen. The United States, Canada, 

 and Australia have also relaxed restrictions on the immigration of 

 non-Europeans who fall into the newly defined preferential cate- 

 gories.^"^ 



EFFECTS OF REORDERING IMMIGRATION PRIORITIES 



As will be seen later on in the study, the effects of this reordering of 

 immigration priorities have been far-reaching, particularly with re- 

 spect to the brain drain problem as it. has affected many LDCs. First 

 of all, the elitist criteria of quality and selectivity invited emigration 

 of the professionals, the intellectuals, and the skilled. "It is no longer 

 the call to 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,' " said 

 Dr. James A. Perkins, President of Cornell University. "Now we ask 

 for your alert, your privileged, your brainy, ycmr talented. Our ma- 

 chines can do the menial work. Today the emphasis is on technical 

 skill, sophisticated training and adaptability to modern society." ^°^ 



These new criteria, along with the lowering of racial restrictions in 

 the advanced countries, provided a special appeal to the LDCs. Para- 

 doxically, attempts to right an injustice of discriminatory quota sys- 

 tems created a new and unintended problem : a powerful incentive was 

 now given to the professionals in the LDCs to emigrate and thus de- 

 prive their developing countries of much needed professional man- 

 power. A survey of professional emigration from Iran, Pakistan, and 

 Turkey showed that 50 percent of all their scientists trained abroad 

 did not return home. Another showed that Argentina lost 5,000 engi- 

 neers through emigration in recent years."* And 58 percent of those 

 emigrating from the United Arab Republic (U.A.R.) were scientists; 

 70 percent held Ph. D. degrees."^ 



Nonreturning students create the most serious professional man- 

 power leakage. According to a United Nations manpower report, the 

 number of foreign students studying in advanced countries has shown 

 a "steep annual increase." In 1967, it said, 100,262 foreign students 

 were enrolled in American institutions of higher learning; an esti- 

 mated 70 percent were from the LDCs."^ According to estimates by 

 Prof. Robert Myers of the University of Chicago, described by Dr. 

 John C. Shearer, Director, Manpower Research and Training Center 

 at Oklahoma State University, as the "best overall measures of the 

 foreign student brain drain," the overall nonreturn rate is between 

 15 and 25 percent rather than the semiofficial 8 to 10 percent frequently 

 quoted."^ Leakage among nonreturning doctoral students has ranged 

 from a high of 90 percent for Taiwan to a low of l-l percent for 

 Pakistan.^8 



i»2ibid., p. 9. Also, Brinley Thomas, "Modern Migration," In Adams, The Brain Drain, 

 chapter 3, p. 29. 



103 Perkins, op. clt.. p. 617. 



10* Eugene B. Skolnilcoflf, Science, Technology, and American Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 

 Mass. : M.I.T. Press, 1967), p. 92. 



^05 Said, op. cit., p. 6. 



1^ Report of U.N. Secretary General, Outflow of Trained Personnel from the LDCs, 

 Nov. 5, 1968, p. 30. 



If" Hearings, House Government Operations Committee, Brain Drain, 1968, p. 17. 



"8 Ibid. 



