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81 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 148 (2006)
The Race for Talent: Highly Skilled Migrants and Competitive Immigration Regimes

handle is hein.journals/nylr81 and id is 164 raw text is: THE RACE FOR TALENT: HIGHLY SKILLED MIGRANTS AND COMPETITIVE IMMIGRATION REGIMES AYELET SHACHAR* The United States has long been the ultimate IQ magnet for highly skilled migrants. But this trend has changed dramatically in recent years. Today, the United States is no longer the sole-nor the most sophisticated-national player engaged in recruiting the best and brightest worldwide. Other attractive immigra- tion destinations, such as Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, have created selective immigration programs designed to attract these highly skilled migrants. Professor Shachar analyzes this growing competition among nations, referring to it as the race for talent. Whereas standard accounts of immigration policymaking focus on domestic politics and global economic pressures, Professor Shachar high- lights the significance of interjurisdictional competition. This new perspective explains how and why immigration policymakers in leading destination countries try to emulate-or, if possible, exceed-the skilled-stream recruitment efforts of their international counterparts. These targeted migration programs increasingly serve as a tool to retain or gain an advantage in the new global economy. Indeed, countries are willing to go so far as to offer a talent for citizenship exchange in order to gain the net positive effects associated with skilled migration. Such pro- grams are clearly successful, as evidenced by the increase in the inflow of highly skilled migrants to those countries. Simultaneously, emigrants' home nations have engaged in efforts to reap a share of the welfare-enhancing contributions generated by their highly skilled emigrants, including redefinition of the nation's membership boundaries. This consequence of the race for talent raises significant questions about the relations between citizenship and justice, as well as mobility and distribu- tion, on a global scale. For the United States, which has traditionally enjoyed an unparalleled advantage in recruiting global talent, these new global challenges come at a difficult time. They compound long-standing problems in America's immigra- tion system, which have only become more pronounced in the post-9/11 era. * Copyright © 2006 Ayelet Shachar, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. I greatly benefited from the comments and criticisms I received on earlier drafts, particularly from Ran Hirschl, Lou Pauly, and Peter Schuck. My interest in the topic of competitive immi- gration regimes has undoubtedly been influenced by my own personal experience as an international knowledge migrant, but it has been equally shaped by my professional experience as a professor of immigration law at Toronto. I owe a debt of gratitude to Ron Daniels for entrusting me with this responsibility. I also thank Alex Aleinikoff, Michael Walzer, and Michael Trebilcock, each of whom has influenced my thinking on this topic. I would like to acknowledge the outstanding research and production assistance of Helena Likwornik, Ben Fishman, James Hunter, and Meredith Stead. This research was gener- ously supported by grants from the Cecil A. Wright Foundation for Legal Scholarship, the Jean Monnet Center for International and Regional Economic Law & Justice at New York University School of Law, and the University of Toronto's Connaught Research Fellowship in the Social Sciences. 148 Reprinted with Permission of New York University School of Law

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