Immigrants to the United States with unique or valuable skills are starting to complete the roundtrip. Economic pressures and a difficult job market here have led many to return to their native countries to pursue new opportunities. This is particularly the case with immigrants from India and China, whose economies are growing this year. Meanwhile, unemployment is 9.7% in the United States right now – and likely to hit 10.3% early next year.

China's gross domestic product is poised to increase by 7.5% by the end of 2009, with India's up 5.4%. In the United States, on the other hand, GDP is forecasted to drop 2.6%.

The U.S. government, following Bill Gates and other high-tech executives pleas before Congress a few weeks back, finally held its lottery for foreign high-tech workers to receive work visas. 65,000 so-called H-1B visas are available for foreigners to work in the U.S. as engineers, programmers or other skilled workers wrote Thomas Donlan of Barron's this weekend.

The first day to apply for a work visa was April 2, by midday 150,000 foreigners applied to get into the U.S., more than twice the available spots. The following day, the "golden gates" were closed.

20,000 of the 65,000 winners are to possess PhD.s and Masters degrees. An interesting note is that foreign students who have yet to receive their degrees were prohibited from participating in the process since they have not graduated.

People receiving legal U.S. permanent residency in 2006 were 1.2 million. 803,000 were family members of citizens. Only 159,000 got in to fill jobs. Donlan pointed out that the government appears to weigh family over most other criteria.

There has always been a lot of controversy around immigration policy, however, no matter how much the ebb and flow of feelings move from one extreme to the other, the demand by people wanting to get into the U.S. never seems to subside. It is something to think about when investing. If everyone in the world wants to come here, it must be a pretty good place to invest.

Short-term movements are irrelevant to the strong term power this economy possesses.