Insights on green cards

This one comes from Thomas Friedman and an op-ed NY Times article.  He's talking about changes that America needs to make in its fundamental approach to infrastructure to become competitive in a global (and tech) marketplace.  The quote that got me was one of the problems Friedman notes:  

...immigration policies that have our colleges educating the world’s best scientists and engineers and then, when these foreigners graduate, instead of stapling green cards to their diplomas, we order them to go home and start companies to compete against ours.

Working with some of these scientists and engineers, I can second that their options for immigration are crummy.  They have one, maybe two shots at getting a green card after completing their degrees, and it sounds like the proceedures for getting either a school visa or a green card are not easy.  So, yes, the US policies are pushing away some of the top minds because of Nationalistic philosophies -- even if helping these people immigrate would be better for the nation in the end.  I'm all for examinging and changing our immigration policies.