Indian brains helped US more than their money helped us

India may have provided more in intellectual capital to the US just over the last decade than all of the financial aid the US has given to India over the last 60 years, says an Indian American entrepreneur researcher who has done a study on the immigration issue.

"So one may ask - who's helping who, here," said Delhi born Vivek Wadhwa, a technology entrepreneur currently working as Wertheim Fellow at Harvard Law School and executive in residence at Duke University on the release of the study Wednesday by Kauffman Foundation.

But for the first time in its history the US faces the prospect of a reverse brain drain because of its flawed immigration policies, says the study, the third in a series of studies focusing on immigrants' contributions to the competitiveness of the US economy.

The US should bring in highly skilled immigrants not as temporary workers but to stay if it does not want to lose them to countries like India and China, the study suggests.

The study is co-authored by Guillermina Jasso, professor of sociology at New York University, Ben Rissing and Gary Gereffi research scholars at Duke University and Richard Freeman, Herbert Asherman Chair in Economics at Harvard University.

Noting that the number of skilled workers waiting for visas is significantly larger than the number that can be admitted to the US, it says this imbalance creates the potential for a sizeable reverse brain-drain from America to the skilled workers' home countries.

The study estimated "there are more than one million individuals waiting in line for legal permanent resident status. The wait time for visas for countries with the largest populations, like India and China, ranged to four years in June - not counting visa processing time - and may be even higher when visas are again available in October.

This backlog is likely to increase substantially, given the limited number of visas available, it said. Evidence from the "New Immigrant Survey" indicates that approximately one in five new legal immigrants and about one in three employment principals either plan to leave the US or are uncertain about remaining.

Moreover, media reports suggest that increasing numbers of skilled workers have begun to return home to countries like India and China where the economies are booming, the study noted.

"So far, the US has the benefit of attracting the worlds best and brightest. They have typically come here for the freedom and economic opportunities that America offers," said Wadhwa.

"Now, because of our flawed immigration policies, we have not set the stage for the departure of hundreds of thousands of highly skilled professionals - who we have trained in our technology, techniques and markets and made even more valuable.

"This is lose-lose for the US. Our corporations lose key talent that is contributing to innovation and competitiveness, and we end up creating potential competitors," he said.