I was an IT consultant for most of my 45 years in the business. In the second half of my career, probably half or more of the other consultants were foreigners. Some could barely speak English and you couldn’t send them into a meeting and get an update from them. They were mostly coders. They worked for less than half of what an experienced programmer would make. By the time I retired they were in control of many agencies and if you weren’t Indian you were out of luck as far as a job went. That’s in the New York/New Jersey area I’m assuming it’s not much different in the rest of the country.
I have never worked in the NY/NJ metro but have done so in most of the other major metros. What you describe is what I have seen happen in the IT industry of those areas.