From 3-D printed food to self-driving cars to automated healthcare, Vivek Wadhwa envisions a near-future where our lives are even more radically transformed than they have been in the recent past.

But here in the present tense, Wadhwa sees America's technology throne slipping out from under us, thanks to a less-than-ideal immigration policy:

With immigration restrictions, mankind benefits but America loses

“What’s happened over the last five or ten years was that because of our misguided immigration policies, we wouldn’t let skilled immigrants in and we wouldn’t let the people that were in our colleges stay. And they started going home. So just as you’re seeing innovations happening in the US, you’re also seeing them happen in India, in China, in Brazil, and in Chile. You’re seeing amazing innovations happening globally because we wouldn’t let skilled immigrants into the US.”

It’s not a zero sum game

“The more innovation you have, the more jobs you create. So by bringing the innovators from all over the world to here, we end up starting more Googles, we end up developing more innovative products, we make the economy bigger and we create more jobs for others. That’s what happens with skilled immigration.”

It’s important to create jobs now before we live in a jobless future

“For the next five, ten, fifteen years, we have the opportunity to create many more jobs. The jobless future is going to happen when robots and self driving cars become reality. Until then, we need all the smart people we can get building those advanced technologies in America, because those technologies will exist whether we create them or whether some other country creates them.”