In many cases a talented/smart person will bring little to zero value to a country with ossified institutions, but huge value to one with the right systems in place to build value.

The way it works is that the origin country is worse off when people leave, but in general immigrants are much better off for moving, and it's not even close.

A big argument for letting people emigrate is that they owe no real debt to the county where they are born, or the city, or anything like that. They aren't selfs owned by a nobleman. If moving increases their personal lot, why should we stop them?

Yes exactly. One country sucking up all the best talent is not good for the world, its a single point of failure.

The problem with this thinking is assuming that countries are equivalent in terms of opportunity and life.

India does not have the same opportunities that America does to have a good and successful life. This isn’t just due to the country being relatively poor but due to structural issues along with corruption. Then there are other issues too. Environmental issues. Too many issues to list.

It’s disingenuous to suggest that a families or individuals should stay behind to change this. Also isnt it a loss for everyone? If smart people come to America and take advantage of opportunities and accomplish things that help many people what good is it to say no to this. That they must stay in the home country and inevitably not accomplish as much due to all these issues. Even if Elon Musk and Jensen Huang had stayed in their home countries they certainly could not have accomplished the same amount they did in America. Both South Africa and Taiwan in that period lacked the opportunities.

Also what is the rationale behind an American saying to people not to come to America and improve it but to stay back? Individual Indians aren’t any different from individual Americans beyond their accent. The children of these immigrants are indistinguishable from Americans who have been here for generations (aside from skin color). I really don’t understand why Americans wouldn’t want the brain gain from having smart people come here. Also if a surgeon is operating on you would you care what skin color or accent they had? Doesn’t make sense to me.

> Isn’t it better for the smart people in India to stay there and make India richer, instead of coming to the U.S. to make billionaires here richer?

An Indian’s greatest accomplishment in life is leaving India.