Not only that, but the US political system moving towards a much stronger anti-immigrant stance is literally reversing the brain drain and kicking out the best part of that deal, the smart people.
Eh, I dunno about the whole 'political system'. Maybe conservative populists, one of which just so happens to be president for now. After inauguration day in 2021, I expect he and everything he stood for will be discarded to the trash bin of history.
Yes, you're very unaware. Anti-immigration has been a signifigant part of the current administration's agenda (and longer term than that, politics in general on both sides of the aisle). I won't venture into the exact motivations for this stance (it's not helpful to the current discussion, and HN isn't really the best place for that kind of political talk) but the sheer pervasiveness and amount of vitriol behind it are the reason you're getting downvoted - it's hard to believe anyone legitimately hasn't seen it.
Here's a quick selection of related articles. Apologies that some of these may be paywalled. Also this was just from random googling, so I haven't fully vetted these links for accuracy/bias.
I've seen anti-illegal-immigration sentiment, absolutely. But what was said was "anti-immigration", which is not at all the same thing.
Even if you think US border policy should be less strict/militarized, that isn't relevant to this discussion, as the number of undocumented migrants working in state-of-the-art chip design is approximately zero, and that's not because of their legal status, it is because skilled labor (which is obviously what is required for chip design/fab) is very capable of getting a visa to live in the US under the current (and previous) administrations.
In fact, the current administration has said repeatedly and explicitly that they do not want to curb legal immigration, only undocumented/illegal migration.
A cursory reading of the headline might suggest this was to prevent spreading of the virus, but the president explicitly said that it was to protect american workers from immigrants competing for jobs
There was also the case a few weeks ago where the government told students on visas that they need to leave the country if their school switches to all online courses in light of the virus[1] which is not only anti immigrant but explicitly reversing the brain drain as was mentioned earlier in the thread. They did reverse that decision but only after major colleges started a joining in a major lawsuit.
There was also the whole "Muslim ban" limiting legal migration.
Oh and ICE deported an Iranian student despite being given a court order not to, so they're also explicitly breaking the law in order to deport people[2]
In both words and actions this administration has been against legal immigration even if it's at less of a degree than illegal immigration.
2 of the 4 situations were not Covid related. For the visa one, they had already lifted the restriction on visa students being able to attend online only courses and then rescinded that relief for no given reason, and backed down as soon as challenged.
They continually snipe at legal immigration and make it harder for people to legally immigrate when they get the chance. A claim was made that they were pro legal immigration. Here's the counter proof
