How Immigrants Have Contributed to American Inventiveness
Fields with more foreign-born inventors see a bump in patents, which leads to economic growth.
Immigrants have helped generate some of America’s most beloved inventions. Alexander Graham Bell, born in Scotland, helped develop the telephone. David Lindquist, a Swede, was the chief engineer at Otis, and pioneered the electric elevator. Herman Frasch, born in Germany, worked in America on a process that would become fracking.
Countries don’t only welcome immigrants because they are good inventors; the best argument for allowing people to migrate from places of conflict or economic malaise might be basic human decency—which is one reason there is so protesting that the ban “threatens companies’ ability to attract talent, business, and investment to the United States.”
