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What is currently happening is the exact opposite.

There is a so-called "Technology Alert List" — a list of critical areas (nuclear, missiles, AI, etc.). If a person has a background in one of these areas, they get an automatic U.S. visa refusal during the interview.

Their visa application gets placed on indefinite hold (the so-called "administrative processing"), which can last for years even if it is eventually resolved.

Why? The U.S. government fears espionage. They worry that someone with expertise in a critical field might immigrate to the U.S., secure a job at a company with access to sensitive, export-controlled technology, and then leak that technology to Russia.

Even without espionage, such individuals could gain valuable experience in critical areas and later emigrate back to Russia — a reverse "brain drain."



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