Immigration Research Shows Stephen Miller Wrong About American Science

Forbes

2 days ago

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller attends a press briefing at the White House on ... More February 20, 2025. Miller, the chief architect of the Trump administration's immigration policy, argues that American scientific achievement owes little to immigrants. A significant body of research disputes that contention. (Photo by)
Stephen Miller, the chief architect of the Trump administration's immigration policy, said recently that American scientific achievement owes little to immigrants. A significant body of research disputes that contention. Miller's argument and a statement by Vice President JD Vance about the Apollo Program seem designed to justify the administration's restrictions on international students and high-skilled immigrants.
On May 31, 2025, in a statement on X.com, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote, 'During the middle of the 20th century—when the U.S. achieved unquestioned global scientific dominance—there was net zero migration. From the 20's to the 70's the foreign-born population was cut almost by half while the overall population doubled. (Until Hart-Celler kicked in).'
Contrary to the implication of Miller's statement, American science owes a great deal to immigrants in the post-war period. Between 1945 and 1974, 16 of the 30 U.S. winners of the Nobel Prize in physics were immigrants, according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis.
In 1954, the Atomic Energy Act established an award recognizing scientific achievements in atomic energy. Italian-born Enrico Fermi won the first award. Five of the first eight winners of what became the Enrico Fermi Award (named after his death) were immigrants. Four of the nuclear scientists who came to the United States from Europe in the 1930s later received a Nobel Prize for physics: Felix Bloch, born in Switzerland, won it in 1952, Emilio Segre (Italy) in 1959, and Maria Mayer (Poland) and Eugene Wigner (Hungary) won the award in 1963.
Despite the immigration restrictions imposed by Congress in 1921 and 1924, U.S. universities and others found ways around some of the quotas as fascist governments drove many brilliant individuals out of Europe. Immigrants Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard signed a letter used by Russian-born economist Alexander Sachs to convince President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to start the Manhattan Project. Breakthroughs by Niels Bohr, born in Denmark, and Enrico Fermi were crucial in developing the atomic bomb. In the end, immigrant and U.S.-born scientists working together turned theory into reality in the race to build the bomb before Nazi Germany.
Between 1945 and 1974, 15 of the 36 U.S. Nobel Prizes in medicine, or 42%, were awarded to immigrants. That tells only part of the story. Albert Sabin, an immigrant from Poland, and Jonas Salk, the son of an immigrant, developed the vaccines that ended polio as a threat to Americans. Both men were in America due to family immigration. 'Without Sabin and Salk, American children would continue to be paralyzed for life by polio,' Michel Zaffran, director of polio eradication at the World Health Organization, said in an interview. 'Their contribution is quite simply immeasurable.'
Immigrants have been awarded 40% of the Nobel Prizes won by Americans in chemistry, medicine and physics since 2000, according to an NFAP analysis (updated through the 2024 awards).
Enrico Fermi in His Laboratory (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
The 1924 Immigration Act, which reduced the flow of immigrants by approximately 90% and blocked Jews, Eastern Europeans and Asians, proved disastrous economically for America. According to research by New York University economists Petra Moser and Shmuel San, the restrictive immigration quotas of the 1920s significantly reduced invention in the United States.
'After the quotas, U.S. scientists produced 68% fewer additional patents in the pre-quota fields of ESE-born [Eastern and Southern European immigrant] scientists compared with the pre-quota fields of other U.S. scientists,' write Moser and San. 'Time-varying effects show a large decline in invention by U.S. scientists in the 1930s, which persisted into the 1960s.'
Moser and San said the results show that U.S. scientists benefited from the presence of immigrant scientists but suffered after U.S. immigration restrictions blocked their entry.
'A firm-level analysis of changes in patenting reveals that firms which employed ESE-born [Eastern and Southern European immigrant] scientists in 1921 created 53% fewer inventions after the quotas,' according to Moster and San. 'A text analysis of U.S. patents indicates that invention also declined more broadly. After the quotas, 23% fewer U.S. patents describe inventions in ESE [Eastern and Southern European immigrant] fields compared with other fields.'
UPENN Wharton economics professor Zeke Hernandez said one would expect similar consequences today should U.S. immigration policy block the entry of international students and foreign-born scientists and engineers.
'America's innovation machine would be decimated,' said Hernandez. 'Sixteen percent of inventors in the U.S. are foreign-born, but they account for 36% of all patents.' He points out immigrants are 80% more likely than the U.S.-born to start new businesses, and they are founders of over half of startups that achieve a $1 billion valuation. Over 70% of the full-time graduate students in key technical fields at U.S. universities are foreign-born. According to economist Zeke Hernandez, 'You don't have to have compassion for foreigners to know that getting rid of immigrants is bad for us.'