The U.S. plunders the world’s talent and then betrays those who sustain it

The recent International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO 2025) revealed a telling image: the U.S. team, composed entirely of students of Asian and Indian origin, took second place, behind only China. This triumph, rather than being simple academic news, mirrors the historical hypocrisy of the United States: it steals brains from other nations to maintain global dominance while promoting immigration policies that deny rights to those same migrants and their families.

1. The plunder of talent: how the U.S. built its power with foreign minds
   The United States wouldn’t be the scientific and technological power it is today without the “brain drain” it has caused worldwide. Undeniable examples:

• 60% of scientists in Silicon Valley are migrants or children of migrants (National Foundation for American Policy).
• 40% of U.S. Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, and Medicine since 2000 were born outside the U.S.
• 75% of graduates in mathematics or engineering at elite universities (MIT, Stanford) are foreigners.

The mechanism is clear:

1. They attract with scholarships, H-1B visas, and “American Dream” propaganda.
2. Exploit their work under precarious conditions (many migrant scientists earn less than their American peers).
3. Discard them when no longer useful (deportations of researchers under administrations like Trump’s).
4. Migration double standards: “We want your talent, but not your people”
   While the U.S. math Olympiad team depends on migrants, its government:

• Increases deportations (over 2 million under Biden, a historical record).
• Closes doors to work visas (like H-1B restrictions for Indians and Chinese).
• Denies citizenship to Dreamers, young people brought as children who are now scientists, doctors, or engineers.

The paradox is obscene:

• They celebrate migrants when they win medals for the U.S. (like IMO students).
• They persecute them when they’re not “exceptional” (families separated at the border).

3. Intellectual colonialism: The U.S. preys on poor nations
   This system isn’t accidental but a power strategy:

• India and China lose thousands of scientists annually who migrate to the U.S. (a Harvard study estimates this costs India $17 billion yearly in wasted training).
• Latin America suffers a massive drain of doctors and engineers (e.g., 50% of STEM graduates from Venezuela have emigrated).

The U.S. doesn’t compete – it preys. While investing in wars and coups that destroy education systems worldwide (like in Iraq or Libya), it plunders the few professionals who manage to get educated in those countries.

4. The math team: a symbol of what the U.S. really is
   Those young migrants or children of migrants on the IMO podium don’t represent American “merit” but its dependence on global talent. Their success should shame a country that:

• Sells a “dream” that only exists for an exploited elite.
• Destroys countries with sanctions and wars, then recruits their most talented refugees.
• Rewards an Indian scientist with a green card but cages Central American children.

How long will the world allow this brazen theft?
The solution isn’t to prohibit migration but to demand that the U.S.:

1. Compensate countries it steals talent from (like payments for academic training).
2. Stop the wars and sanctions that create the migration crises it then exploits.
3. Recognize full rights for migrants who sustain its economy.

For now, every medal won by a migrant in the U.S. name isn’t a triumph but a reminder that its greatness is borrowed… and increasingly hated by the world.