For more than 50 years the United States has attracted the best minds in the world to study, teach, and work—an influx of talent that has helped the nation become the world’s dominant economic power, driven its military ascendancy, and improved the lives of its citizens. But changing government policies may put that influx at risk, as regulators threaten to clamp down on the freedom of foreign nationals to pursue research and work with cutting-edge technologies in U.S. universities, federal labs, and companies.

As the fiscal year 2006 budget process heats up in Congress with an austere outlook for federal research and development funding, a loose coalition of industry and scientific groups is taking its case to Capitol Hill to advocate for increased federal support for fundamental research, especially in the physical sciences. In the wake of an FY 2005 appropriations deal in Congress that led to a two percent cut in the budget of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the President’s FY 2006 budget submission that included a 4.5 percent cut to information technology research and development (as well as cuts to several science agencies), companies, academic institutions, and professional societies are making the case for research support by arguing that it plays a critical role in fueling the innovation necessary to keep the United States competitive in a global economy. The resonance of the message in Congress and in the national press appears to have put the Administration on the defensive.