U.S. President Joe Biden wants to make it easier for Russian scientists, engineers and technology professionals to move to the U.S. by temporarily suspending the need for a sponsoring employer. It’s a welcome move and long overdue.
By streamlining the system to accelerate an already a damaging rate of departures from Russia, Washington will erode President Vladimir Putin’s ability to sustain his invasion of Ukraine and his repressive machinery at home, undermine crucial Kremlin propaganda and boost the U.S. economy — which has gained in the past from precisely such efforts.
Russia has experienced multiple emigration waves over the past century or so, through the 1990s when some 2.5 million left amid an economic collapse. Putin’s arrival initially promised increased prosperity, but departures have increased again since 2012, the year he returned for a third term, signaling an authoritarian turn. Recent migrants have often cited politics as their reason for departure; they are by and large educated, well-off and liberal. They’re also young: Nearly half of 18- to 24-year-olds last year expressed a desire to move abroad, along with a third of 25- to 39-year-olds.