Immigration Research Shows Stephen Miller Wrong About American Science [View all]

Stephen Miller, the chief architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, said recently that American scientific achievement owes little to immigrants. A significant body of research disputes that contention. Miller’s argument and a statement by Vice President JD Vance about the Apollo Program seem designed to justify the administration’s restrictions on international students and high-skilled immigrants.

Research Does Not Support Miller’s Statement About American Science And Immigration
On May 31, 2025, in a statement on X.com, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote, “During the middle of the 20th century—when the U.S. achieved unquestioned global scientific dominance—there was net zero migration. From the 20’s to the 70’s the foreign-born population was cut almost by half while the overall population doubled. (Until Hart-Celler kicked in).”

Contrary to the implication of Miller’s statement, American science owes a great deal to immigrants in the post-war period. Between 1945 and 1974, 16 of the 30 U.S. winners of the Nobel Prize in physics were immigrants, according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis.

In 1954, the Atomic Energy Act established an award recognizing scientific achievements in atomic energy. Italian-born Enrico Fermi won the first award. Five of the first eight winners of what became the Enrico Fermi Award (named after his death) were immigrants. Four of the nuclear scientists who came to the United States from Europe in the 1930s later received a Nobel Prize for physics: Felix Bloch, born in Switzerland, won it in 1952, Emilio Segre (Italy) in 1959, and Maria Mayer (Germany) and Eugene Wigner (Hungary) won the award in 1963.

Despite the immigration restrictions imposed by Congress in 1921 and 1924, U.S. universities and others found ways around some of the quotas as fascist governments drove many brilliant individuals out of Europe. Immigrants Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard signed a letter used by Russian-born economist Alexander Sachs to convince President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to start the Manhattan Project. Breakthroughs by Niels Bohr, born in Denmark, and Enrico Fermi were crucial in developing the atomic bomb. In the end, immigrant and U.S.-born scientists working together turned theory into reality in the race to build the bomb before Nazi Germany.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2025/06/01/immigration-research-shows-stephen-miller-wrong-about-american-science/