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www.newsindiatimes.com – that’s all you need to know News India Times (May 23, 2026 - May 29, 2026) May 29, 2026 4 Opinion I n 1992, Congress passed the Soviet Scientists Im- migration Act, which gave hundreds of weapons scientists and engineers a new pathway to perma- nent U.S. residency and kept them from selling their expertise to Iran or North Korea. Despite the name, nobody thought of it as immigration legislation, and the bill cleared both chambers easily. It may seem surprising given America’s toxic immigra- tion politics, but the door those scientists came through still exists. And the party that throws it open once again will own the single most popular pro-growth policy in the United States. The numbers are irrefutable: Roughly 80 percent of American voters support high-skilled immigration. Even more than 70 percent of Trump voters back it. By com- parison, expanding nuclear power sits at 59 percent. Building smaller homes closer together polls at just 50 percent. Deregulation has never crossed majority support in 25 years of Gallup tracking. Nonetheless, the center-left has conceded this ground. Democrats have broadly retreated since President Joe Biden’s late-term turn toward immigration enforcement. Abundance writers such as Ezra Klein and Derek Thomp- son sidestep touting immigration as a growth lever. Even Matt Yglesias, who made an ambitious pro-immigration case in “One Billion Americans,” has grown cautious. The center-right has the same problem, except in reverse. The center of gravity in the party has moved far rightward on the issue since 14 Senate Republicans backed a compromise containing a path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants in 2013. Republicans who privately know the country needs foreign scientists avoid saying so for fear of being outflanked on their right. Vice President JDVance illustrated the point when he recently described the U.S. space program as built by “American citizens,” rejecting any need to “import a for- eign class of servants and professors.” That erases not just Wernher von Braun, who led the Saturn V program, but the entire Operation Paperclip cohort of more than 1,600 German scientists the U.S. recruited afterWorldWar II. WhileWashington argues over which immigrants belong, the cost is already showing in the data. CNN has tallied at least 85 top U.S. researchers, including more than a dozen artificial intelligence specialists, who have joined Chinese institutions since early 2024. A March 2025 Nature poll found that three-quarters of U.S.-based scientists are considering leaving. Britain, Singapore, Aus- tralia and Canada are actively recruiting them. The U.S. is the only major AI power moving in the other direction. Both sides have misread the politics in the same way. Immigration in the abstract is toxic, because voters see illegal crossings and visa abuse by people willing to break the rules. But the resulting backlash does not extend to welcoming top talent via specific, well-designed, legal programs. Even the most anti-immigration voters will support increased entries when the policies are straightforwardly beneficial to the country. I call this demonstrably benefi- cial immigration, and it is less about rhetoric than design: Programs with visible benefits whose beneficiaries have a stake in defending them and whose opposition is thin can succeed. Consider the field of AI. About 70 percent of the top AI researchers working in the U.S. were born or educated abroad, as were roughly two-thirds of graduate students in AI-related fields. The American advantage in AI is, to a remarkable degree, an immigration advantage. These are not workers who are displacing Americans. They are the researchers every country in the world is actively bidding for. But that advantage is under pressure. In September, the Trump administration imposed a $100,000 fee per new H-1B visa petition aimed at deterring firms that the administration argued were using the specialty oc- cupation visa to undercut American workers. Then in March, the Labor Department proposed overhauling the prevailing-wage system in a way that would push required salaries for H-1B and green card workers sharply upward, on similar grounds. Right now, every H-1B hire must be paid a “prevailing wage” meant to match what comparable Americans earn, but the current formula is crude enough that large IT staffing firms routinely game it by paying foreign workers less. So both these rules have a defensible rationale. But they would also price out the research institutions and early-stage companies that produce the most top talent, because the biggest wage hikes fall on entry-level posi- tions, where research labs and start-ups do most of their hiring. That’s the opposite of what’s needed. Voters will reward the politician or party that advances a well-designed plan to invite in the world’s best talent, whether in AI or other promising high-tech fields. Two concrete moves can put that idea to work. And they don’t even require action by Congress. First, expand and encourage greater use of the O-1A extraordinary-ability visa. Unlike the H-1B, this estab- lished program for top individuals in fields including the sciences has no numerical cap and no lottery. Far more STEM PhDs and postdocs already in the U.S. would qualify than currently apply, but university hiring offices and corporate HR default to the H-1B lottery out of habit. This visa exists; many more companies and immigrants should use it. Second, fix how the government sets wages for for- eign workers. The Labor Department’s March proposal includes an option that would require employers to pay foreign workers what an American with the same job and experience earns, which would close that gap without crushing the research pipeline. That option needs to be the one the agency picks, and the public comment window closes May 26. After that, the choice gets harder to reverse. In a 2019 Rose Garden speech, President Donald Trump lamented that U.S. rules were pushing the world’s top talent elsewhere. “We discriminate against genius. We discriminate against brilliance,” he said. That diagnosis remains cor- rect. The programs are there. All that’s missing is a politician to promote them. Alexander Kustov is an associ- ate professor of global affairs at the University of Notre Dame and the author of “In Our Interest: How Democracies Can Make Immigra- tion Popular” and the “Popular by Design” newsletter. -Special to TheWashington Post By Alexander Kustov This Immigration Policy Is AWinner. It Just Needs A Champion Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of the authors and Parikh Worldwide Media does not officially endorse, and is not responsible or liable for them. PHOTO:X @AKOUSTOV Chandrayaan-3 Receives 2026 AIAA Goddard Astronautics Award I ndia’s Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission has been hon- ored with the 2026 Goddard Astronautics Award by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astro- nautics (AIAA), presented inWashington, D.C. on May 21, 2026. On August 23, 2023, Chandrayaan-3 made history as the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing near the Moon’s south pole — a region of immense scientific and strategic importance that had never before been explored at surface level. The mission delivered critical data to support future human missions to the Moon and confirmed the presence of key chemical elements in the lunar south polar soil, pointing to local resources that could one day sustain manufacturing operations on the surface. India’s Ambassador to the United States, His Excel- lency Vinay Kwatra, accepted the award on behalf of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at the AIAA ASCEND 2026 Conference. In his remarks, Ambassador Kwatra outlined Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Space Vision 2047, highlighting India’s roadmap for deep space exploration, human spaceflight, and the rapid growth of its commercial space sector. He also called for strength- ened collaboration between the governments, industries, and research institutions of India and the United States — underscoring the deepening partnership between the two nations in space exploration. Press release PHOTO: ISRO.GOV.IN Three dimensional views of Chandrayaan – 3 modules. US-India