Recent changes in the US have changed that calculus but you can’t create an entire industry in the blink of an eye (and, of course, those changes can be reversed at any point)
In order for all of this to work cleanly, you need the everyman taken care of and actually willing to participate and have hope for the future. Until then you'll just get a slew of likely underhanded populists, because they at least pretended to care.
That's why you need smart people who care planning things. Miss out on either of those and you're going to fail. And right how we have people "planning" things who are neither smart nor caring.
- how many US citizens do these labs hire for every immigrant scientist they employ? There are support roles at all levels, all the way down to custodian. What jobs are lost when these grants are denied? A lot of this work will (hopefully!) continue, just in other counties. Now those countries get to employ their citizens instead.
- are the youth unemployed compared to previous levels? Are these unemployed youths able to do the jobs the immigrants do?
The US doesn’t take in skilled immigrants as a favor to the rest of the world or something. Other countries educate their citizens to a high level then the US poaches them and has them contribute to growing the US economy. It’s the story of countless Silicon Valley startups so it’s especially surprising to see this sentiment on HN!
Because scientific industries form a part of the US economy and hire a great many average Americans! And when you employ a good number of people there are a bunch of connected industries you spend money with, who in turn employ a lot of average Americans.