Because the comment you replied to is wishful thinking and not facts. Highly qualified people are still falling over each other trying to secure US visas, whereas the international press loves to print headlines like “scientists are leaving America in droves”, naming a grand total of three specific scientists who left.

The world doesn’t operate the way we want it to, and US salaries are head and shoulders above what you can get anywhere else in the world. That’s what people really care about, and not the news cycle surrounding the current administration.

> Highly qualified people are still falling over each other trying to secure US visas, whereas the international press loves to print headlines like “scientists are leaving America in droves”, naming a grand total of three specific scientists who left.

Not from my group of colleagues. The only person who actually did end up going for a green card is actually the most politically unaware and least competent.

> US salaries are head and shoulders above what you can get anywhere else in the world.

This may be the case but the cost of health care, child care and homeownership are so much higher now than they used to be that for a lot of people it doesn't make any economic sense anymore.

I see a lot of people going for a few years, working their assess off, then leaving before they even have to start thinking about a mortgage.

Immigrant scientists may be leaving America, because federal funding for some sciences areas have been rather abruptly cut. But, scientists are a small portion of high-skilled migrants.

We can't even employ the PhDs we have