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Stuck in the swamp of US immigration, one of Kishore Khandavallis top managers decided to move to India at the end of 2019.

Educated in the United States and living in the country on a three-year renewable visa, the man had waited so long for permanent residency that he eventually gave up.

We are on the way to losing our competitive advantage as a technology powerhouse.

With Khandavalli unwilling to replace him and unable to find skilled workers in the United States for his 40-strong company, Dallas-based software maker 7T, Khandavalli opened a field office for the manager and about 15 other employees outside of Mumbai.

Sooner or later, Khandavalli said, international workers stuck in the US immigration system say, I dont need to be treated like a third-rate citizen in this country, no matter how great this country is. I cant drive a car, I cant rent a space. What am I doing here?

Your answer, increasingly, is to go. And thats a growing challenge for the U.S. technology industry, the economy in general, and an education system that doesnt produce enough Americans with the science skills employers need.

Kishore Khandavalli, CEO of a Dallas-based custom software company, opened an office in India for employees, including a manager who left the United States after getting tired of the immigration system. Photo credit: Kishore Khandavalli

The decline in international student enrollment, competition from Canada and Australia, and higher salaries offered by increasingly dynamic technology sectors in India and China have brought American employers more than 1 million job openings this spring, according to the bipartisan National Foundation for American Policy . The unemployment rate in the technology sector, which is already low at 3 percent, even fell during the pandemic.

While campaigning for immigration reform hampered by political dysfunction, technology leaders and entrepreneurs are also advocating more education in American high schools in computer science, a subject less than half of them teach.

The permanent solution is to get our own people into science and math, said Khandavalli. We have to start early, in elementary and middle schools, and say, Math is not difficult.

The United States remains the worlds leading destination for technical talent in all respects. The Visa lottery is open to skilled workers each year, and the countrys universities are world leaders in educating international students.

But the talent gap is closing as international business competitors benefit from the aftermath of Trumps anti-immigration policies, particularly some of his changes to all, said Gaurav Khanna, assistant professor of economics at the University of California San Diego who studies high-level migration.

Budding engineers choosing between studying in Canada or the United States could be an easy decision, according to Khanna.

The image is really important, said Khanna.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau always says, We really want global talent and were going to make it really easy to get to Canada, they said. President Joe Biden might try that, but the world is still trying to breathe off a pile of weirdness regarding immigration during Donald Trumps presidency.

While the Biden administration has started pulling back some of Trumps immigration restrictions, the White Houses opinion on skilled workers is not clear.

The US Citizenship Act of 2021 would address concerns from proponents of increased immigration of highly skilled workers by making it easier for graduates of science, technology, engineering and math at US universities to stay in the country, among others; In Congress, which last passed comprehensive immigration reform in 1986, it is faced with long opportunities.

Related: Even as universities commit to improving, the proportion of black engineers and mathematicians is decreasing

Workers still spend years on waiting lists, fighting for drivers licenses, renting apartments or buying houses. Children can age if they are not covered by their parents all. Spouses often cannot work.Its nerve-wracking, said Khandavalli and humiliating.

Why would a guy have a six-figure salary to put up with that? he asked.

Indian and Chinese immigrants, including many in the U.S. tech sector, also speak of anti-Asian bigotry, which flared up during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Naren Meadem noticed this bias after riding a motorcycle with a group of Brazilian classmates studying computer science at the University of Washington Tacoma. When he was with them everyone thought he was Brazilian too, Meadem said. When he was alone, however, the mood changed to something less welcoming.

After completing his Masters degree, Meadem interned at Intel outside of Seattle and was then hired full-time. The work was personally and financially rewarding they bought a pair of superbikes to complement a Chevy Camaro theyd bought while college but Meadem wanted to start a business.

With a temporary visa that tied him to his former employer, he was not allowed to work independently and had to return to India to become an entrepreneur.

Since returning in 2017, Meadem has formed three startups employing around 40 people and plans to add more people in the coming months.

The options were very limited [in the United States], limited government support to help my mind [get] brought to life, said Meadem. In comparison, the Indian economy and the general conditions for me as an Indian citizen were pretty good.

Related: How A Decline In Community College Students Is A Big Problem For The Economy

In India, Meadem joined a growing tech economy. Indian engineering and computer science graduates and returning veterans from Silicon Valley have fostered a technology sector that now exports more software than the United States, Khanna said.

US students continue to fall behind in math and engineering. The United States ranks 36th out of 79 countries and regions in the assessment of their 15-year-olds on international math tests administered by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. (The Department of Education places the US ranking at 30th and says that some of the values are so close that they are statistically considered the same.) And the US ranks from first to 11th on the Bloomberg Index the most innovative nations.

Nearly 60 percent of the Masters and 56 percent of PhDs in engineering awarded by US universities go to foreign students, many of whom are returning to their home countries and competing with American firms.

Tech companies are campaigning for laws that would open federal grants for teacher training in computer science, which is supported by both parties in Congress. The industry is also excited about Bidens push to expand technology education at high minority universities, including historically black colleges and universities.

Unfortunately, we have a shortage of skilled workers in this country at the moment, said Karolina Filipiak, Senior Director of Government Affairs at the Information Technology Industry Council.

Sooner or later international workers who have stalled in the US immigration system will say, I dont need to be treated like a third-rate citizen in this country, no matter how great this country is.

If you look at the US workforce, there is an opportunity to put up our memorials to see how we can reach most of the people and make really smart investments, said Filipiak, who is a member of the political advocacy group Amazon, Apple, Owned by Google and Microsoft.

Filipiak said building digital infrastructure at all colleges and universities, including historically black and indigenous and Hispanic institutions, should be a priority. She argued that a robust retraining program could help revitalize the economy as Covid-19 waned.

If we make it easier for people to transition and acquire skills so they can get into the technology pipeline, I think it would be a great achievement, Filipiak said.According to a study by Code.org, a Seattle-based nonprofit dedicated to teaching computer science, only 23 states require high schools to offer computer science classes. The organization found that 53 percent of American high schools dont offer a single computer science class, and where classes are offered, girls and black and Hispanic students are underrepresented.

These are the skills you need now to be a productive member of society, said Sean Roberts, vice president of government affairs at Code.org. All students must have access, or we will exacerbate the opportunity gap.

While some in his industry argue that more temps is the easiest solution, Khandavalli wants to see this profound change. To maintain its position as a global technology leader in the long term, the US must help international students obtain permanent residency while attracting more US-born students to the sciences.If nothing helps, said Khandavalli, we are on the way to losing our competitive advantage as a technology powerhouse.

This technical education story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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Computer science is taught in less than half of the grammar schools. These educators want to change that - PBS NewsHour - Fior Reports