As the numbers indicate, the H1B system is broken. It was broken by allowing the body-shops to apply for what are basically &quot;temp workers&quot;. When I got mine, in 1994, such &quot;temp work&quot; (consulting) was explicitly forbidden. The employee had to work for and <i>at</i> the company that applied for you, not at the offices of a company&#x27;s clients. When and why this changed I don&#x27;t know.<p>What I do know, as the founder of a European expat organization with 7k members in the USA, is that H1Bs for highly skilled Europeans have nearly come to a standstill. This is evidenced by the change in demographics of my target audience. Average ages have gone up significantly. Most newcomers now arrive on L1 (inter-company executive transferee) visas, are older, married, and have a family.<p>The way to fix this is by going back to the old situation and put the body-shops out of business...