H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms
I went through the entire comment thread and feel like you guys are missing a lot of the H1B benefits by focusing just on tech and the effect of the Indian consultancies.Most PhDs, specially in STEM, math, stats, econ, etc. are not American. And almost all of them end up with a H1B visa at some point if they remain in the US.It might be lottery based if you go to work at any firm, or quota-free if it is in academia/nonprofits/govt, but it's still through H1B.Now, what happens if you kill the H1B?1) Applications from qualified foreigners to US PhDs drop a lot, because they know they won't be able to find a US-based job.
2) Every firm that does R&D, from Boeing to Amazon, will lose out on a large pool of very skilled workers, that are very hard to replace (how easy is it to replace a CS PhD working on LIDARs for self driving cars?)All in all, I don't think critics understand this side of the value of the H1B to the US. Every year, you guys take some of the best engineers and researchers across the world, and move them to very useful roles in the US economy.Disclaimer: I'm currently in an H1B, and would like to think my work contributes to the US. So reading all this makes me a bit sad (and unwelcome).