Editor's note: Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

It's long been known that immigrants have been a source of lifeblood for American innovation. Though there's a common narrative that immigrants take what are supposedly "American jobs", actually in many cases immigrants are filling up positions that U.S. citizens simply aren't qualified for – and therefore immigrants are indispensable to the U.S. economy. 

This is because the U.S. has, very deliberately, underfunded its public education system and made higher education unattainable for a huge portion of the population. Not only do many Americans simply not have the tools at their disposal to be highly qualified candidates for high-skill positions, many that do have aptitude don't have the capital needed to get those qualifications. 

When globalization took hold across the world after the Cold War ended, the world flattened. Goods, ideas and people began to freely flow where barriers once existed. In the wake of the emergence of this flattened world, highly skilled immigrants from places like the former Soviet Union, China and India, which are locales that place a high degree of importance on education compared to the U.S., poured into the country during the dot-com boom to put their skills to use. 

According to a 2013 report by the Immigration Policy Center, from the years 1995 to 2005, over 52 percent of startup companies in Silicon Valley had at least one immigrant founder. This includes some of the most recognizable tech companies in the world, like Yahoo!, eBay, Google, and Qualcomm, as well as people like Elon Musk and Sergey Brin. 

Now this lifeblood appears to be under threat for several reasons, including the fact that immigrants in the U.S. have always been highly exploited, the fact that work itself is becoming less geographically dependent, a general decline in America's favorability around the world and the fact that anti-immigrant racism, particularly against people of Asian descent, are driving people away. 

It's no secret that even highly qualified immigrants in the U.S. are regularly exploited by being forced to do tasks outside of their official job description, being paid low pages, getting passed over for promotions, having the prospects of a green card dangled over their heads or outright being held "hostage" since their immigration status is dependent on keeping their job. 

Workers' willingness to put up with this has been primarily based on the allure of the so-called "American dream" and the fact that being geographically close to an industry hub creates opportunities. On the latter point, this was already becoming less the case since the beginning of the 21st century. The COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the pace at which work, and perhaps entire industries become geographically decentralized.

As far as the American dream, well, Americans themselves are gradually tapering their belief in it altogether. A 2020 YouGov poll found that 54 percent of U.S. adults think the American dream is attainable for them, while 28 percent believe it's unattainable for them personally and nine percent reject the idea itself. This is also reflected in the fact that in 2020, a record number of U.S. citizens – 6,705, or a year-on-year increase of 260 percent – renounced their citizenship, according to an analysis by Americans Overseas.

It's no wonder people feel this way. Nearly 600,000 Americans died from COVID-19 thanks to the federal government's negligence, inequality is soaring and polarization is at a boiling point. 

Of course this has been felt abroad too. Even though President Joe Biden's inauguration has helped the U.S.'s public opinion standing internationally, it is still not good by any means. According to a recent Morning Consult survey, most surveyed countries don't have an overtly rosy view of the U.S. – including China, a major source of foreign students and skilled immigrant labor, with a 74 percent unfavorability rating. 

Finally, hate crimes are obviously making people feel unwelcome. As a May 7 feature by Chemical & Engineering News makes clear, the uptick in anti-Asian hate crimes – and deliberate U.S. government policy targeting scientists that collaborate with China – are simply driving Asian scientists away from the U.S., which they described in the piece as a "cornerstone of U.S. chemistry." 

The U.S. faces a tough choice of how to replace this talent, which would be a genuine labor shortage (unlike the one being discussed wall-to-wall in national and local U.S. media), since fielding domestic talent is untenable at this point. Biden's move to let the Trump H1B visa ban expire last month is a positive step, but more work has to be done to ensure that immigrants feel safe, secure and respected while in our country.

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