I can only reply with my son’s experience.
He is an ABD (all but dissertation) in a physical chemistry Ph.D. program who is very strong in scientific programming and large databases. For reasons that are irrelevant here, he “mastered out” of the Ph.D. program.
In his first job, he was in an “H1B shop.” It was for CGG, a French-owned company, whose Houston-based division did subsea geologic surveys for the oil industry. He was there for two years before they let him go, after oil dropped from $100 to $25/bbl, and they were in deep trouble. (Eventually he got a much better development job for a startup that melded chemical, optical, and programming skills, but that’s beside the point).
The way he told it, at CGG they preferred H1B’s, because they could work them 70 or more hours per week. The reason is that they had to hold a US job for 3 or 4 years to get their green cards. In the meantime, they were near-slaves. If they lost the job, they had to leave.
So, in his department, his managers and many of his co-workers were either Chinese or Indian. All of the non-managers made roughly 65K per year, which is the minimum amount per the H1B program for people at the degree level. That level of pay was pretty good when the program was originated, but is now entry-level for people with Master’s or Ph.D. degrees.... and it hasn’t been changed since 1989.
The arguments that you made, and that companies like Google and Microsoft make, that there aren’t enough skilled US programs at the $150K or so level, may in fact be true. But, as the program is now operated, there are many H1B shops who almost exclusively hire at the 65 to 70K level, and flog the help mercilessly for extended hours.
The net effect is that entry-level (and these are high entry positions) Americans have to compete with near-slave labor. Americans are being strongly discouraged from entering the STEM field by this layer of desperate and mistreated H1B’s. Moreover, within an abusive H1B shop, if you’re an American, you’re a foreigner in your own country. Good luck getting promoted when your manager can promote one of his countrymen.
Pearls before Swine makes some very good points.
Companies do have some hooks into foreigners applying for greencards (which is different than H1B visas.)
It’s also true that some of the Indian contracting companies (e.g. Wipro) are bringing in many young H1Bs and might be paying them lowish wages ($60k).
These two areas should be tightened up. But to disallow H1B visas or to put a significant block on them is totally stupid.
.