If this isn’t the quote of the year, it’s definitely in the top three and underscores how skill-based immigration has enabled the U.S. to completely dominate the global economy over the last several decades.

By the late 1990s, Chinese- and Indian-born engineers ran one in four tech startups in Silicon Valley. In 2022, 55 percent of US startups valued over $1 billion had immigrant founders. International students, many of whom returned to the US as workers after graduation, contributed $56 billion to the US current account in 2024 through educational services exports.

These findings come from a 2026 study from the prestigious National Bureau of Economic Research.

Many of these mega-contributors arrived on H-1B visas. For some reason many conservatives want to reduce these visas.

Immigrants Are Economic Assets