Welcome back, Desi: Indian entrepreneurs desert US

For the first time in history, immigrants are deserting the US for better opportunities abroad after attending the country's top universities, according to a new study by the Kauffman Foundation.

A customer holds a statue of Hindu Goddess Lakshmi who represents money or wealth, at a road side stall in Hyderabad. Cold hard cash–and America's tough visa regime–are luring more and more Indians and Chinese to return home to start businesses. (NOAH SEELAM – AFP/Getty Images).

Thousands of Indian and Chinese students are heading home to start businesses rather than settling in the US and contributing to the economy there, India's Economic Times reported, citing a study by the foundation–one of the world's largest think tanks focusing on entrepreneurship.

Working with Duke University, the University of California-Berkeley and Harvard University, the foundation found that the chief motivating factor for over 60% of Indians and 90% of Chinese respondents were the exploding economic opportunities in their home countries, the paper said. While there is no mechanism to track the number of returnees, researchers estimated the number to be well over 150,000, the paper reported. 

Other reasons cited by sources interviewed by ET include the faltering US economy and the increasing difficulty of obtaining work visas. 

"It's not a brain drain, but a hemorrhage," said Vivek Wadhwa, who co-authored the Kauffman report.. "Flawed US immigration policies along with opportunities in India and China have hastened this trend."