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US Seeks to Steal Putin's Top Scientists by Loosening Their Visa Requirements (msn.com) 170

Posted by EditorDavid from the changing-countries dept.
"The Biden administration has a plan to rob Vladimir Putin of some of his best innovators," reports Bloomberg, "by waiving some visa requirements for highly educated Russians who want to come to the U.S., according to people familiar with the strategy." One proposal, which the White House included in its latest supplemental request to Congress, is to drop the rule that Russian professionals applying for an employment-based visa must have a current employer. It would apply to Russian citizens who have earned master's or doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics in the U.S. or abroad, the proposal states.

A spokesman for the National Security Council confirmed that the effort is meant to weaken Putin's high-tech resources in the near term and undercut Russia's innovation base over the long run — as well as benefit the U.S. economy and national security. Specifically, the Biden administration wants to make it easier for top-tier Russians with experience with semiconductors, space technology, cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing, advanced computing, nuclear engineering, artificial intelligence, missile propulsion technologies and other specialized scientific areas to move to the U.S.

Biden administration officials have said they've seen significant numbers of high-skilled technology workers flee Russia because of limited financial opportunities from the sanctions the U.S. and allies have imposed after Putin's invasion on Ukraine.

The provision would expire in four years.
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US Seeks to Steal Putin's Top Scientists by Loosening Their Visa Requirements More

US Seeks to Steal Putin's Top Scientists by Loosening Their Visa Requirements

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    • Re:Let see if Putins reciprocates (Score:5, Funny)

      by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Saturday April 30, 2022 @03:51PM (#62492432)

      You know it is already easier for a random person to immigrate to Russia than to the US, right? Russia has one of the world's most liberal immigration policies.

      • Re:Let see if Putins reciprocates (Score:4, Insightful)

        by gtall ( 79522 ) on Saturday April 30, 2022 @03:55PM (#62492440)

        Ya, well that's easy for them seeing as no one wants to emigrate there.

        • well that's easy for them seeing as no one wants to emigrate there.

          That's not really true, they have a ton of immigrants from surrounding countries, notably Ukraine. Also from China, Kazakhstan, etc

          • That's not really true, they have a ton of immigrants from surrounding countries, notably Ukraine.

            Forced "immigration" doesn't count.

            • Forced "immigration" doesn't count.

              They are not forced. Life in Russia is way better than the rural poverty of Kyrgystan or Tajikistan.

              Russia is also better than Ukraine in many ways, including double the median household income.

          • That's not really true, they have a ton of immigrants from surrounding countries, notably Ukraine.

            Should it really count as immigration when guys with guns show up and tell you that your home is now part of Russia?

            • When the USSR broke up a significant number of people were left in other countries who were pro-Russia. I don't think it's a majority anywhere, especially Ukraine as some people have claimed, but it surely has to be a factor.

      • Re:Let see if Putins reciprocates (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Saturday April 30, 2022 @04:17PM (#62492494)

        You know it is already easier for a random person to immigrate to Russia than to the US, right?

        You’re that guy who informs everyone that falling trees do, in fact, make a sound when they fall in the woods, even if no one is around to hear them, aren’t you?

        You’re missing the point if you think those policies are in any way relevant.

      • Re:Let see if Putins reciprocates (Score:4, Informative)

        by EnsilZah ( 575600 ) <EnsilZah.Gmail@com> on Saturday April 30, 2022 @05:19PM (#62492632)

        Sometimes it's so easy the immigrants themselves are not even consulted first.

      • You know it is already easier for a random person to immigrate to Russia than to the US, right? Russia has one of the world's most liberal immigration policies.

        So does North Korea. In fact it's so liberal that people even immigrate there without really wanting to. Many of them get government-provided jobs and accommodation in Kwalliso.

      • You can check-out any time you like (mentally),
        But you can never leave! (Russia).

        I think many of you will know which song the lyrics are from.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eth1 ( 94901 )

      You laugh, but Putin has had people assassinated before.

      His way of "reciprocating" might be more direct.

      • /sarcasm No he does not reciprocate. Strong people follow Putin's path. It is the way for a better world. Only the weak and retarded oppose his ideas. It is obvious. Just look at the news reports.
        They are so stupid that they fall out of windows all the time. They are mentally unstable and commit suicide, sometimes taking their family with them. They do not wash their hands when eating and get poisoned, ...

        It is a sad bunch of people.
    • Prisoner swaps. A basketball player in jail now on very coincidental timing of smuggling. She played in Russia before due to higher pay. So right before the invasion which she got stupid and decided a very small smuggling of hash would be worth the risk of long imprisonment. Yeah right. Anyway loosening VISA qualifications could be done on humanitarian grounds to at least pretend to be more altruistic. I think the PR could have been handled better. Putin is a dangerous hostage taker and they should deal wit

  • Western Employees (Score:5, Insightful)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Saturday April 30, 2022 @04:09PM (#62492480) Homepage Journal

    I work for Dell, and we have a development team in St. Petersburg (it's been there probably twenty years). It may become increasingly difficult to keep them working there, and it would be great if we could relocate the whole group, families and all, to western Europe or the USA. I don't know how many of the people there would want to make such a move, but it should be an option.

    • I work for Dell, and we have a development team in St. Petersburg (it's been there probably twenty years)

      You probably have less than a week to move them out of there. You should be acting now because on 9 May (victory day) there's expected to be a form general mobilization which will close down routes of escape from Russia. From that point on we are likely in a new cold war with fully closed borders and people being shot trying to escape to the West. Beware that they likely won't fully understand the situation and in any case will be afraid to say much so you have to give them an opportunity to get out of coun

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by crow ( 16139 )

        That's certainly a possibility. I'm not in a position to influence any actions concerning that team, or I would have been working on getting them out for months.

        • Yeah, well, please ensure that the person who is responsible has at least had the suggestion in writing so they can't later claim that it was a complete surprise. Plenty of other companies have done that already.

  • Great (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bluegutang ( 2814641 ) on Saturday April 30, 2022 @04:13PM (#62492490)

    Now make it permanent and make it apply to Chinese and Iranian scientists too. There is no better way to strengthen our economy while weakening our potential enemies at the same time.

  • How about fixing our screwed up educational system first? The cost of college is absolutely insane. Russia needs their best and brightest. Brain draining them is only going to make matters worse. Putin is the problem ... Putin is the one that needs to go.

    • The goal is to prevent them from being able to build weapons.

    • How do you make him go?

    • Re:Due something about our educational system (Score:4, Interesting)

      by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Saturday April 30, 2022 @05:18PM (#62492628)
      Brain draining them is TOTALLY the way to go. Putin barely matters. This might be slightly illiberal, but culture runs deep, and sometimes the stereotypes have truth to them. The russians absolutely love their czars. Their experiment with democracy lasted a short decade, and then they reverted to type. When Putin goes, there will be another czar. I dont care what they call it nowadays. Prime minister, president, supreme leader, whatever. In russia, dont fool yourself, its a czar. And they view themselves as a glorious empire. For the small numbers of russians who prefer an open, democratic type of life, better for them to leave and go somewhere that suits them.

      Same for China. Whatever individual qualities people have, when you put together millions of people raised in Chinese culture, for whatever reason, they absolutely must have an emperor. We should welcome the Chinese people who DONT want to live under the thumb of the emperor of China.

      To be clear: this is about CULTURE, not RACE. Americans have a type as well. It doesnt matter who the leader is, the Americans want to kick the bum out and install the next shiny new object. They want CHANGE, no matter what. They want it so bad they built it into their system. Look! A squirrel! ADHD is a fundamental feature of our government. And we complain about and criticize everything. Oh my god the complaining.

    • So simple, just give a visa to Putin, he'll immigrate into the US. Problem solved. Genius.

  • Our entire race to the moon missions were pioneered by the German rocket scientists we poached. Who cares where the knowledge and engineering come from. Bring them on over.

  • Personally, I wouldn't trust them... (Score:3)

    by flightmaker ( 1844046 ) on Saturday April 30, 2022 @04:36PM (#62492532)

    as far as I can spit cherry stones.

    Great idea to get them out of the employ of the Putin creature, just give them rent free coastal apartments somewhere quiet, pensions to live on the beach and a bullet if they go within 10 miles of any research/development establishment.

    Why? I recently read a book about the life of one Ursula Kuczynski.

    I hear Nome and Deadhorse are lovely this time of the year.

  • So far be it for me to bite the hand that fed me, with my family being a beneficiary of a similar policy at the end of the cold war, but....

    Is it wise to lobotomize the enemy before you have defanged him?

    30 years ago, the people who left the former Soviet Union were generally the ones with the most marketable skills *and* the most liberty-minded dispositions.

    As we have seen, that left Russia's citizenry less economically dynamic (ie poorer) and less liberty-minded (ie belligerent).

    Did that turn out well?

  • And you go back to a country led by someone with a long memory?

  • This could work (Score:3)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Saturday April 30, 2022 @06:22PM (#62492770)
    From the short time I was working there in international companies (and some from Roscosmos, Russia's NASA), pretty much everyone was chasing the same dream; to get out of Russia & its thoroughly corrupt system. For that, they need to get a Schengen visa (to live & work in the EU) or to get sufficient qualifications, expertise &/or experience to get a working visa to emigrate to Canada or Australia. Those were the top choices. If the USA can make it particularly easy, without any trickery like immigrants' qualifications & experience not being properly & fully recognised, they might be persuaded to broaden their options. These are highly intelligent, capable & motivated professionals (& pleasure to work with) who'd be very valuable to whichever country welcomes & helps them to integrate & re-start their careers.
  • US has a shortage of tech employees. Anyone with higher education described in the OP should be able to fly passed interviews and secure a job offer. This process facilitates an additional filter to make sure US doesn't end up importing people who just bought themselves a degree (interviews are not a perfect filter I know, but do provide at least some filtering function). Rather than removing the employment requirement, they should just increase the number of work visas available to people who do get a job

  • It seems like the most basic and completely acceptable form of warfare is luring valuable people away with a promise of better things.

    It's not always amnesty for Nazis to build rockets.

  • You've got a lot of nerve, to say you are my friend... you just want to be on the side that's winning.

    --Bob Dylan.

  • US is not "stealing" anybody from Russia (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WierdUncle ( 6807634 ) on Sunday May 01, 2022 @02:25AM (#62493276)

    The implication is that there is a policy of pinching top talent from Russia, as a form of economic warfare. That is not proven. I think it quite understandable that talented and enterprising Russians would want to leave their home country, where the economy has been going down the tubes for years, and the political regime is increasingly oppressive. Before World War 2, with the rise of the Nazis, quite a number of people fled Germany for more a more friendly new home. I met a couple of people like that in the course of business. One chap ended up running five major electronic component factories in Wales. I have no idea if these people were Jews, but they sure were intelligent and enterprising.

    The point is, there is plenty of proof that immigration comprising mostly talented and highly motivated people benefits the economy they move to, so it is something to be encouraged. The right wing moan that "they come over here, and take our jobs" is really an admission that the locals have got lazy, and expect to be given a nice life without working for it.

    The idea, then, is to remove pointless bureaucratic barriers to immigration, while there is significant pressure on educated Russians wishing to leave their country. The fact that such an emigration might further harm the Russian economy is not really a consideration. I think the corrupt oligarch system has already done far more harm to the Russian economy than any US open-door immigration policy could do.

  • This is a good idea. Now let's make it permanent and permanently expand it to all countries. I'd be fine saying anyone with a college degree can move to the US any time they want.

    Of course, I'm actually with Bryan Caplan and think we should just open the US borders and be done with it. Turns out that's better for virtually everyone except the autocrats like Putin.

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