Just a few US immigrants in science and math

Earlier this month, I wrote a post highlighting the accretive nature of immigration to the US economy, citing a handful of examples. Below is a more detailed list I found through an Ai Search Summary, which offers some data to a few of the examples. Just leaf through the list to get a sense of the breadth of their influence.

“Astronomy

Bart Bok – Born and raised in The Netherland. Became a U.S. citizen in 1938.[172]
Margaret Burbidge – Born in the United Kingdom. Became a U.S. citizen in 1977.
Betül Kaçar
Janet Akyüz Mattei
Feryal Özel
Otto Struve – Born in Russian Empire (modern day Ukraine). Became an American citizen in 1927.

Biology

Ivet Bahar
Salvador Luria – Born and raised in Italy. Became a U.S. citizen in 1947.
Gökhan S. Hotamisligil
Ahmet Yıldız

Chemistry

Nihat Berker
Albert Chan
Basudeb DasSarma – Born in India (modern day Bangladesh). Became a U.S. citizen in 1972.
Aziz Sancar

Economics

Abhijit Banerjee
W. Michael Blumenthal – Born and raised in Germany. Became a U.S. citizen in 1952.
Michele Boldrin
John Kenneth Galbraith – Born and raised in Canada. Became an American citizen in 1937.
Faruk Gül
Asim Ijaz Khwaja
Murat Iyigun
Naci Mocan
Franco Modigliani – Born and raised in Italy. Became a U.S. citizen in 1946.
Salih Neftçi
Tayfun Sönmez

Engineering

Roma Agrawal
Ali Akansu
Ilkay Altintas
Viktor Belenko – Born and raised in Russia. Became an American citizen in 1980.
Lodewijk van den Berg – Born and raised in The Netherlands. Became a U.S. citizen in 1975.
Burcin Becerik-Gerber
Wernher von Braun – Born in Germany. Became a U.S. citizen in 1955.[173]
Tuncer Cebeci
Zeynep Çelik-Butler
Philip K. Chapman – Born and raised in Australia. Became a U.S. citizen in the late 1960s.
Kalpana Chawla – Born in India. Became an American citizen in 1991.
Ali Erdemir
Okan Ersoy
Walter Haeussermann – Born and raised in Germany. Became a U.S. citizen in 1954.
Pınar Keskinocak
Alexey Pajitnov
Thuan Pham
Jesco von Puttkamer – Born and raised in Germany. Became a U.S. citizen in 1967.
Ben Rich
Andy Thomas – Born and raised in Australia. Became a U.S. citizen in 1986.
Mehmet Toner

Mathematics

Asuman Aksoy
Lamberto Cesari – Born and raised in Italy. became an American citizen in 1976.
Bang-Yen Chen
Samuel Eilenberg
Ernst Hellinger – Born and raised in Germany. Became a U.S. citizen in 1944.
Mark Kac – Born in the Russian Empire (modern day Ukraine). Became an America citizen in 1943.
Leonid Khachiyan – Born and raised in the Soviet Union (modern day Russia). Became a U.S. citizen in 2000.
Emil Leon Post
John von Neumann – Born and raised in Hungary. Became an American citizen in 1937.
Albert Nijenhuis – Born and raised in the Netherlands. Became a U.S. citizen in 1959.
Ida Rhodes
Ayşe Şahinr
Sema Salur
Halil Mete Soner
Stanisław Ulam – Born in Austria-Hungary (modern day Ukraine). Became a U.S. citizen in 1941.

Medicine

Gertie F. Marx – Born and raised in Germany. Emigrated to New York in 1937 and became a U.S. citizen sometime after.

Meteorology

James Murdoch Austin – Born and raised in New Zealand. Became a U.S. citizen in 1946.[174]

Philosophy

Hannah Arendt
Max Black – Born in Azerbaijan raised in the United Kingdom. Became a U.S. citizen in 1948.

Physics

Ilesanmi Adesida
Qanta A. Ahmed – Born and raised in the United Kingdom (specially England). Became a U.S. citizen in 2015.
Ernest Ambler – Born and raised in the United Kingdom (specially England). Became an American citizen in 1957.
Muzaffer Atac
Bülent Atalay
Felix Bloch – Born and raised in Switzerland. Became a U.S. citizen in 1939.
Asım Orhan Barut
Ernest Courant
F. J. Duarte
Robley Dunglison – Born in the United Kingdom. Became a U.S. citizen in 1838.
Taner Edis
Albert Einstein – Born in Germany. Became a U.S. citizen in 1940.
Federico Faggin – Born and raised in Italy. Became an American citizen in 1968.
Enrico Fermi – Born and raised in Italy. Became a U.S. citizen in 1944.
André Frédéric Cournand – Born and raised in France. Became an American citizen in 1941.
Jim Yong Kim
Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil
Bennet Omalu – Born and raised in Nigeria. Became a U.S. citizen in 2015.[175]
Yuri Orlov – Born and raised in the Soviet Union (modern day Russia). Became a U.S. citizen in 1993.[176]
Benjamin B. Rubinstein – Born in Finland. Became a U.S. citizen in 1957.
Wolfgang Pauli – Born and raised in Austria-Hungary (modern day Austria). Became a U.S. citizen in 1946.
Horst Ludwig Störmer
Leana Wen – Born in China. Became a U.S. citizen in 2003.
Emil Wolf
Xiaoxing Xi

Psychology

Ozlem Ayduk
Carola B. Eisenberg – Born in Argentina. Became a U.S. citizen in 1949.
Erik Erikson
Peter Harzem
Boris M. Levinson – Born in the Russian Empire (modern day Lithuania). Became a U.S. citizen in 1930.
Renee Rabinowitz
Douglas G. Stuart – Born in Australia. Became an American citizen in 1961.
Max Wertheimer”

One of the lessons which is lost on too many leaders is you never know where good ideas may originate. Another is people who immigrate to the US are often more entrepreneurial on average than Americans. Risking the journey to a new country is evidence of this. Plus, many of these folks are more educated than the positions they find themselves in. They view a poor job as a starting point.

I understand the argument over illegal immigrants, but they are ingrained in hiring in more than several industries. If leaders did not want them here, why were employers allowed to hire them? Rather than rounding people up like cattle under a presumption they are here illegally, having a plan to integrate people, follow due process, and be humane is not too much to ask. Doing anything for political reasons is usually not a good recipe for well-thought out execution.

Immigration

My retired attorney acquaintance penned yet another informative piece on immigration. Here it is, with my response after the quoted portion.

“At some point in our history, we were all immigrants and probably mistreated. White settlers were immigrants to Native Americans. Irish, Poles, Jews, and Italians, immigrants all and the subject of discrimination galore. Intolerance has greeted most religions. Not to mention the unconscionable treatment of African Americans. Border security has been a battleground for exclusion throughout our history. The current focus is on Central and South Americans, most of whom come to our Country seeking opportunity and a better way of life even though it means performing work others reject. Let us not forget that Biden led a bipartisan attempt at addressing immigration issues that was torpedoed by Trump who wanted to make immigration an issue in the election.

The irony is that many of Trump’s bad qualities originated in his non acceptance in Manhattan because of his Queens background. For sure there are some bad apples that have crossed our southern border, but the ultimate bad apple is currently President of The United States. He has put in place an Immigration and Customs Enforcement that terrorizes people. Their fear has shut down construction sites and eliminated farm labor. People that clean houses are afraid to go to work or send their kids to school.

Such intentional maltreatment of people is the kind of thinking that leads to killing people on boats in the Caribbean and entertaining regime change in Venezuela. Folks, we are better than this. How we treat immigrants and “others” is a litmus test of our humanity. So far, we are failing!”

***********

This is excellent. There is another recent history example that occurred starting around 2013. A bipartisan Gang of Eight Senators, including Marco Rubio and John McCain led the passage of a pretty good immigration bill in the Senate. While Speaker John Boehner had the votes to pass it, he refused to vote on it in the House as he was getting criticized by fellow Republicans for passing too many Democrat majority bills. So, it died on the vine leading Barack Obama to create his DACA Executive Order.

Scroll forward to Donald Trump, he agreed to a bipartisan immigration bill with Senators Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin a morning during his first term. The bill would make DACA a law and provide $25 billion for Trump’s border wall, his number one campaign issue. Late that morning, Senator Tom Cotton talked Trump out of the deal saying it would be better to campaign without it. So, when Graham and Durbin showed up early afternoon to sign it, they found out Trump had screwed them over. This was the day he said he did not want to allow immigrants from “sh*thole countries.”

The bill Boehner did not vote on was something McCain had promoted for several years. Unlike others, McCain actually had studied these issues and worked with others to get a workable bill. In my view, Boehner did a disservice to America by not allowing a vote. It also frustrates me that Rubio ran away from his greatest legislative achievement pretending it did not happen when he ran for president. He did not last long as a candidate, yet could have offered a better future for the Republican party if he led with this work.

What do the deployed think?

In an article by Andrew Gumbel in The Guardian called “Troops and marines deeply troubled by LA deployment: ‘Morale is not great’” it is telling that these American troops do not want to be there. The subtitle adds to their concern. “Several service members told advocacy groups they felt like pawns in a political game and assignment was unnecessary.” Here are a few paragraphs: