Iran engineer travel ban return to USA Sean Rayford/Getty Images

How Middle Eastern Immigrants Boost US Competitiveness

Inventors from predominantly Muslim countries are vital to US innovation. President Donald Trump’s proposed travel ban, if enacted in whole or part, would do more than cheapen the American dream: it would weaken the country’s standing as the world’s capital of new ideas.

DUBAI – In his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein chose a Muslim linguist, “Dr. Mahmoud,” to help the book’s Martian-raised protagonist make the transition to life in the United States. Stranger may be fiction, but Heinlein’s selection of a Muslim interpreter was rooted in reality. In fact, people from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have been “translators” of innovation and discovery in the US for decades.

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