In the last couple of years, I've had the privilege of working with a lot of college students in various career mentoring programs, and one thing has always stood out at me.
Probably about two thirds or more of the applications for NYSSA's SEMI Program come from either immigrants to this country or children of immigrants. Now, I know that's generally not reflective of the general NYC college student population, so, a disproportionately large percentage of the foreign students are taking advantage of this great opportunity.
I asked one student about this and he told me that education and opportunity is the only reason that he was here--it was the only reason his whole family came here in the first place.
What's really obvious to me is that a lot of the native born students here are simply going to get steamrolled by competition like that... and as well they should be.
So maybe instead of closing the borders, we should be trying to figure out how we can get the people that are here as motivated as the people trying to come here.