If you’re like me, when Philadelphia Magazine publishes its 50 Best Restaurants list, “meal prep” takes on a new connotation as I plan my fantasy year of dining and start making reservations. Once you’ve made your picks from this month’s issue, I urge you to turn to the article by Gina Tomaine “The Immigrant on My Couch.” The article explains the professional challenges faced by her highly qualified, American-educated future brother-in-law from India in the “Buy American, Hire American” era. Tomaine’s article is well written, well researched and well documented. Her future brother-in-law’s story is a compelling example of how, in the crackdown on illegal immigration, the United States is suffering by not keeping up with economic and technological reality when it comes to regulating and reforming legal immigration. Spoiler alert: Tomaine’s future brother-in-law left the United States with his two graduate degrees (a master’s in electrical and computer engineering and an MBA) and his experience in our tech sector and was quickly swept up by a burgeoning tech startup in Singapore.

Like his younger brother, Tomaine’s future husband, Anush, a Ph.D.-level researcher at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, represents another major group of talent and drive that faces unreasonable and unproductive obstacles to legal migration. While legal, their path is disheartening—some say soul crushing—because of systematic delays and the uncertainty of a chaotic approach to immigration policymaking.