Submitted by R Johnson, Jan 14, 2007 12:03

In recent weeks I've read several stories on the importance of immigration to America's inventiveness

Several of these stories tout the recent influx of immigrants and their contributions to the tech industry. Several of the reports suggest American technical expertise would be significantly harmed if it wasn't for this influx of foreign skilled workers.

These stories also mirror the korporate propaganda calling for more H-1B visas.

As one whose avocation is engineering history, trivia got me to recalling some of my past writings on engineering trivia.

I have a small database of engineers who have change our world!

In reviewing my list I note several of these (American) engineers were foreign born.

Over the 19^th- 20^th century several important scientists immigrated to the United States too!

You know their names:

Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Edward Teller, Werner von Braun, Leo Szilard

But why did these individuals come to the U.S.? Most were escaping political repression.

Can that be said of many of today's immigrants?

Why are they leaving their homeland??

Looking back into American science/engineering history several key foreign born engineers/scientists have played key roles in advancing technology

Do you know roles of these engineers?

Swedish émigré' John Ericsson

French émigré' Octave Chanute

Serbian émigré' Nikola Tesla

Polish émigré' Ralph Modjeski

German Émigré' Vladimir Haensel

Russian émigré' Vladimir Zworykin

Russian émigré' Alexander Mathew Poniatoff

Russian Émigré' Igor I. Sikorsky

British Immigrant Sir Frank Whittle

I'll let YOU research the above individuals to learn what they contributed to American's technical prowess

Some of the names are recognizable. Those that aren't should be!

Question? How many of the engineers/scientists came here on tech worker visas?

How did American's tech/engineering/science industry survive without H-1b visas???

American has always welcomed those scientists, engineers with special skills.

But the shear numbers of (cheap) foreign skilled workers appears to this writer something new.

Thoughts??

Bob Johnson

Contributor to www.engology.com

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