1278 



Facing this dilemma the United States appears to have only one 

 practical recourse for remedy through immigration control, and that 

 is the use of the Department of Labor certification requirement. In 

 such cases the principle for denying entry would then be acceptable, 

 namely, that of competing with American professionals and inability 

 to absorb new immigrant professionals. This policy would be less 

 open to charges of discrimination. Such administrative actions now 

 account for some of the decline in the number of immigrant scientists 

 and engineers. But as a practical matter this dilemma, though real, is 

 essentially academic in the case of FMGs, since the United States 

 loants their services and is accommodating its regulations to encourage 

 their immigration.^^^ 



Paradox of Education in Nation- Building Process. — A further com- 

 plication in reducing the "pull" factor is the paradox of education 

 in the nation-building process. International educational exchange is a 

 powerful and effective instrimient in nation building; but it also cre- 

 ates optimum conditions for brain drain. 



Specialists on brain drain and development would concur in Pro- 

 fessor Niiand's statement that "the United States has become a grad- 

 uate school for much of the developing world." ^^^ For over a quarter 

 of a century American education, placed at the service of the emerging 

 LDCs, has certainly contributed much to their progress. Data pre- 

 sented in Chapter III give some idea of the dimension of this 

 undertaking. 



Educational exchange has thus become one of the principal and 

 perhaps most effective instruments in building institutions vital for 

 development. Exchange programs, as Dr. Frankel observed, "can have 

 a profoundly constructive effect" on development. He explained : "Ef- 

 forts to spread knowledge of English, arrangements for university-to- 

 university partnerships, programs permitting attendance at inter- 

 national conferences — all these develop an infrastructure for interna- 

 tional intellectual and professional life that can reduce the influence 

 of conditions that make for a 'brain drain.' " For Dr. Frankel, the 

 remedy for brain drain is "a continuing international circulation of 

 brains, still larger and more far-reaching than is now going on." ''" 



Despite this persuasive argument, still there can be no escaping the 

 paradox of international educational exchange: it gives, but it also 

 takes away. As already indicated in previous chapters, students and 

 scholars are attracted by the allure of life in the United States. Ameri- 

 can education may have equipped them with tools for building institu- 

 tions in their own lands, but it also opened up a new world in which 

 the same tools could bring even greater personal benefits, satisfaction, 

 and rewards. For many exchange students the attraction proved 

 irresistible, 



Paradox of Advanced Scientific-Technological Civilizaticns. — The 

 nature of an advanced scientific-technological civilization, like that in 

 the United States, produces still another paradox that further com- 

 plicates the task of diminishing the "pull" factors in brain drain. The 

 American scientific-technological civilization is driven forward by 



'»! Both Dr. Hunt and Dr. Sprague seemed to offer little hope for remedies throuph 

 Immigration regulation. See, Hearings, House Government Operations Committee Brain 

 Drain, 1968, pp. 64 and 69. 



"'" Niland, op. clt., p. xlil. 



''^ Hearings, Senate Judiciary Committee, International Migration of Talent and Skills. 

 1968, p. 22. 



