Award-winning computer scientists endorse Biden, citing Trump’s immigration policies

A group of two dozen award-winning computer scientists has endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in his White House bid. 

In a group interview with the New York Times, the scientists said that under President Trump the U.S. could do long-term damage to the tech industry, one of the most important blocks of the country’s economy.

The group includes John Hennessy, the executive chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. All the members of the group are winners of the Turing Award, which is often called the Nobel Prize of computing.

The group cited, among other things, Trump’s immigration policies that have been at times hostile to foreign students and tech professionals.

“The most brilliant people in the world want to come here and be grad students, but now they are being discouraged from coming here, and many are going elsewhere,” David Patterson, a Google distinguished engineer and former professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told the Times. 

Matt Sheehan, an analyst with MacroPolo, a think tank that promotes ties between the United States and China, told the Times that the U.S. wins when skilled foreign workers come to the U.S.

“There is an increasing tendency to assume that the best thing we can do is prevent China from interacting with the U.S. tech ecosystem,” Sheehan said. “But that ignores the fact the U.S. is the overwhelming winner when Chinese technologists come here, study here, work here and stay here.”

The endorsement marks the first time the group of Turing winners are throwing their support behind a political candidate. Earlier this week the Scientific American also endorsed Biden, which marked a first for them in more than 170 years.