On immigration

The dominant images in America's immigration debate are now well established: illegal immigrants marching in the streets of Los Angeles or Chicago; angry congress-men demanding that the United States regain control of its borders. It is to be hoped that America will find a fair way to legalise the status of the masses who have risked so much to get there. But the understandable focus on poor migrants has obscured the fate of richer "knowledge workers". Computer programmers may seem less deserving of pity, but how America treats these people could be even more important to its economy than its attitude to illegal immigrants.

America's high-tech industries have been powered to a remarkable degree by people born outside the country. According to one calculation, 3,000 of the technology firms in Silicon Valley since 1980 - more than 30% of the total - were founded by entrepreneurs with Indian and Chinese roots... But fears about national security and concerns about economic insecurity mean that America is in danger of cutting off this vital flow of talent.

Brains and borders, The Economist, May 6, 2006.