Leading US Research Lab Appears to Be Squeezing Out Foreign Scientists
Leading US Research Lab Appears to Be Squeezing Out Foreign Scientists
https://www.wired.com/story/leading-us-research-lab-appears-to-be-squeezing-out-foreign-scientists/
Publish Date: 2026-02-20 05:00:00
Source Domain: www.wired.com
One of the US government’s top scientific research labs is taking steps that could drive away foreign scientists, a shift lawmakers and sources tell WIRED could cost the country valuable expertise and damage the agency’s credibility.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) helps determine the frameworks underpinning everything from cybersecurity to semiconductor manufacturing. Some of NIST’s recent work includes establishing guidelines for securing AI systems and identifying health concerns with air purifiers and firefighting gloves. Many of the agency’s thousands of employees, postdoctoral scientists, contractors, and guest researchers are brought in from around the world for their specialized expertise.
“For weeks now, rumors of draconian new measures have been spreading like wildfire, while my staff’s inquiries to NIST have gone unanswered,” Zoe Lofgren, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, wrote in a letter sent to acting NIST director Craig Burkhardt on Thursday. April McClain Delaney, a fellow Democrat on the committee, cosigned the message.
Lofgren wrote that while her staff has heard about multiple rumored changes, what they have confirmed through unnamed sources is that the Trump administration “has begun taking steps to limit the ability of foreign-born researchers to conduct their work at NIST.”
The congressional letter follows a Boulder Reporting Lab article on February 12 that said international graduate students and postdoctoral researchers would be limited to a maximum of three years at NIST going forward, despite many of them needing five to seven years to complete their work.
A NIST employee tells WIRED that some plans to bring on foreign workers through the agency’s Professional Research and Experience Program have recently been canceled because of uncertainty about whether they would make it through the new security protocols. The staffer, who spoke on the condition of…
