U.S. immigration rules blamed for tech brain drain

The combination of better job climates in India and China and seemingly interminable waits for U.S. permanent resident status has changed the calculus for most students, he said.

Wadhwa said 60 of the 65 foreign engineers among the 120 he helped train this year to be business executives are leaving for India, China, and Turkey. He conducted a Facebook survey and discovered similar results across the United States.

"This is absolutely a new development," he said.

Aman Kapoor, head of the lobbying group Immigration Voice, said people are starting to leave in higher numbers because they have come to believe Congress will not fix the problem.

"They are giving up. And when they go they are taking their jobs with them," he said. "In time, Silicon Valley will no longer be in Northern California."

The problem exasperates area leaders. Tim Draper, a partner in the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, expressed the view in strong terms.

"As far as I am concerned, when someone receives a technological BS, MS or PhD from a top university, and they are starting to pay U.S. taxes, we should make them a citizen on the spot," he said in an email.

That's not likely to happen soon.

Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, a Washington think tank, said that it will be difficult to pass reform legislation as long as Americans are losing jobs. In California, the unemployment rate hit a record 11.5 percent in May.

"It could be the death knell of high-skilled professionals coming into the United States," Anderson said.

And as long as highly trained foreigners do not know if they can remain permanently, they will not buy houses, or start companies and create jobs, he and others said.

Lofgren said one man she knows got his PhD and post-doctoral training but is cooling his heels waiting for a green card. It could take years.

"The guy is in his late 30s and still in limbo ... I can understand that at some point you have to make a life for yourself someplace. You can't just be on hold." (Editing by Eric Walsh)